- ‘Bigi Boy’ was down four rounds on all scorecards before explosive overhand right at UFC on ESPN 7
- ‘It doesn’t take much, one shot, one kill,’ says Rozenstruik, who calls out ‘big scary guy’ Francis Ngannou
Jairzinho Rozenstruik was down 4-0 on all three judges' scorecards with 10 seconds to go against Alistair Overeem, The uneventful main event between the two heavyweight big hitters had failed to live up to its billing at UFC on ESPN 7 in Washington.
Then "Bigi Boy" exploded, finally letting that big right hand fly with a vicious overhand he propelled his whole body into that split Overeem's upper lip completely open and sent him flying back into the fence.
Referee Dan Miragliotta called a stop to the fight at 4:56 of the final round, despite Overeem jumping right back up.
The state of the Dutchman's lip, and a little wobble on his feet, seemed to convince the official to step in " which was perhaps fortunate for Rozenstruik, who had turned his back on Overeem to celebrate after opting not to fire off another shot.
All it takes is one for @JairRozenstruik pic.twitter.com/MRTg1mNpch
" ESPN MMA (@espnmma) December 8, 2019
"It was a hard fight, he's a really smart guy. He made me work. Finally, knock him out " I don't need too much, one shot, one kill," Rozenstruik told Jon Anik in his post-fight Octagon interview.
The undefeated Surinam fighter is now 10-0 overall, having racked up four wins in the UFC after only making his debut in the promotion in February this year.
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He is surely a lock for rookie of the year, with KOs against Andrei Arlovski, Allen Crowder and Junior Albini too. Now, he's calling for a showdown with heavyweight bogeyman Francis Ngannou.
"I wanna be back like March or April. I really want to fight this big scary guy, Francis Ngannou," he said. "If you hear this right now, I hope you accept this fight. Man, let's give these people a real show."
Rozenstruik had chosen not to touch gloves with Overeem before the fight. "Even I touched gloves with Jon Jones," Daniel Cormier noted on commentary.
"I think Alistair made one big mistake," Rozenstruik said. "He said I'm not his level. He definitely did not respect what I do.
"I put a lot of work in for this, trained four months for this fight. To say that, I think he's missing something. Going deep is what I do for every fight, I showed some hard rounds."
It certainly wasn't the barnburner fans might have expected.
Miragliotta had to break them up in the clinch in the second round, with the Capital One Arena less than pleased with the lack of action, voicing their displeasure with a smattering of boos.
A telling statistic was that Overeem landed two takedowns in a fight for the first time since 2008 against Mirko Filipovic. "I did not expect this fight to go into the fifth round," Cormier said, summing up the consensus.
Then, suddenly, Jairzinho exploded into life, setting up the finish with a left that stunned Overeem before letting fly with that overhand right.
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