Taiwan’s Rocky Lee suffered his first loss in his Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) debut on Saturday in Krakow, Poland, dropping a unanimous decision to Taylor Lapilus of France.
The bout was a preliminary for UFC Fight Night 64. In the main event, Croatia’s Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic avenged his 2007 knockout at the hands of Gabriel Gonzaga with a third-round TKO.
Lee was a semi-finalist on The Ultimate Fighter: China reality television show. He is the first Taiwanese mixed martial artist to fight contracted to the UFC, although Kaohsiung-born Taiwanese American Andy Wang competed in the fifth season of The Ultimate Fighter.
In Lapilus, he faced a much more experienced fighter and a southpaw with an almost 13cm reach advantage. Lee sought to negate that reach advantage by trying to take the fight to the ground from the get-go. His initial efforts at a takedown were derailed by a low blow, but after a short timeout, he once again had Lapilus in the clinch against the cage, this time scoring a single-leg takedown. However, Lapilus quickly got to his feet and threatened a standing guillotine choke. Lee was able to work free, but suffered a number of knees before he did. The scene repeated itself as Lee again had to free himself from a standing guillotine and Lapilus began landing one-two combinations and knees, while stuffing Lee’s takedown attempts. Lee landed a kick to the body to end out the round.
Lapilus began the second round aggressively, landing a straight left and knee to Lee’s head. Lee scored another takedown, but Lapilus worked his way back to his feet against the cage and landed punches. Lapilus increasingly dominated the exchanges and had Lee’s nose streaming blood midway through the round. Lee landed a hard kick to the body to end the round, but clearly lost the round.
Lapilus continued to dominate the exchanges in the third and landed two takedowns on his way to winning all three rounds on each of the judges’ scorecards.
Lee’s record falls to 3-1-0, while Lapilus’ improves to 9-1-0.
TIGHT GAME: The Detroit Pistons, the NBA’s second-best team, barely outlasted the Washington Wizards, who fell to an NBA-worst 1-10 with their ninth consecutive loss Cade Cunningham’s triple double, Daniss Jenkins’ three-pointer at the buzzer and Javonte Green’s overtime dunk lifted Detroit past Washington 137-135 on Monday, stretching the Pistons’ win streak to seven games. In an unexpected thriller, the NBA’s second-best team barely outlasted a Wizards club that fell to an NBA-worst 1-10 with their ninth consecutive loss. “We knew how big this game was for us,” Jenkins said. “We wasn’t going to let nothing stop us from getting this W.” Cunningham made 14-of-45 shots and 16-of-18 free throws for a career-high 46 points, and added 12 rebounds, 11 assists, five steals and two
With a hat-trick on Wednesday, Victor Osimhen moved atop the UEFA Champions League scoring table, with the Nigeria striker netting all three goals in Galatasaray’s 3-0 victory over Ajax in Amsterdam. Osimhen moved to six goals this season in Europe’s elite club competition, one more than Harry Kane, Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland. The Istanbul club signed Osimhen to a permanent deal from SSC Napoli in the summer for a record transfer fee in the Turkish League reportedly worth US$86 million. The 26-year-old striker needed less than 20 minutes to complete his first hat-trick in the competition. He headed in the opener in the
An amateur soccer league organized by farmers, students and factory workers in rural China has unexpectedly drawn millions of fans and inspired big cities to form their own, raising hopes China can grow talent from the ground up and finally become a global force. The nation of 1.4 billion people has about 200 million soccer fans, more than any other country, but it has failed to build world-class teams, partly due to a top-down approach where clubs pick players from a very small pool of prescreened candidates. The professional game is marred by a history of fixed matches, corruption, and dismal performances,
Amanda Anisimova on Wednesday pulled off a stellar comeback to get the better of Iga Swiatek 6-7 (3/7), 6-4, 6-2 and book her spot in the last four of the WTA Finals in Riyadh, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei won in the doubles at the women’s year-ending event. Making her tournament debut this week, the fourth-seeded Anisimova secured the runner-up spot in the Serena Williams Group behind Elena Rybakina. Rybakina completed round-robin play with a perfect 3-0 record, thanks to a 6-4, 6-4 success against Russian alternate Ekaterina Alexandrova earlier in the day. Anisimova improved her three-set record this season to an impressive
RSS