Mario Pinto stays unbeaten with massive knockout win in UFC debut
Mario Pinto improved to 10-0 and put the heavyweight division on notice with a massive knockout of Austen Lane in the featured preliminary bout at Saturday’s UFC Fight Night card from Las Vegas.
Bing. Bang. Bosh.
Mario Pinto improved to 10-0 and put the heavyweight division on notice with a massive knockout of Austen Lane in the featured preliminary bout at Saturday’s UFC Fight Night card from Las Vegas.
Following a tentative opening round, the 26-year-old from Portugal picked up the pace and began trading heavy punches with Lane. He found the mark with a left hook into an overhand right early in Round 2 that put Lane to sleep.
The referee managed to step in to officially halt the action before Pinto could land any follow-up strikes to an unconscious Lane that would’ve caused unnecessary damage.
Pinto trains out of London, England, and earned a UFC contract this past September with a win on the most recent season of Dana White’s Contender Series.
Pinto looked calm, cool and collected five months ago at the UFC Apex when he landed a clean left hook early against Lucas Camacho to warrant a shot in the UFC, and Pinto showed against Lane that he looks like he belongs in the big show with a statement win like that.
The prelims opened with a flyweight contest, with Ramazan Temirov snapping Charles Johnson’s four-fight winning streak by extending his own to 11 with a unanimous decision.
Temirov is now 2-0 in the organization and will debut in the Official UFC Fighter Rankings early next week when they are updated since he was unranked prior to his victory over Johnson, who entered Saturday as the No. 12-ranked contender at 125 pounds.
Andrea Lee was handed her sixth consecutive loss as she dropped a unanimous decision to JJ Aldrich in women’s flyweight action.
Lee holds the UFC record for most consecutive losses within the women’s divisions. All six of the losses on her current streak have been via decision — four unanimous, two split — with her most recent win coming in 2021.
Also on the prelims, Chepe Mariscal swept the scorecards in his win over fellow featherweight Ricardo Ramos, and Danny Silva got his hand raised in a split decision over Lucas Almeida.
