Cody Garbrandt vomited into a bucket after taking three consecutive low blows but still eked out a win in a bizarre fight at UFC 326.
Former bantamweight champion Garbrandt takes on Chinese boxer Xiao Long as he looks to get back into the winning column after two consecutive losses to Deveson Figueiredo and Laoni Barcelos.
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Loveless had an encouraging opening round, with Shaw hitting the fence with a fierce elbow, but his exit was in danger of being derailed in the second round when Shaw was hit in the groin not once but twice.
The second shot, a toe kick to Private, left Garbrandt lying on the ground in agony and soon saw the American vomiting, initially directly onto the canvas before someone entered the Octagon to give him a bucket.
Garbrandt was given five minutes to recover, but after standing up and wiping his mouth, he was back in action in just half that time, and Shaw was deducted a point by referee Herb Dean.
Garbrandt gave his opponent a death glare and then flew off the block to the delight of the crowd.
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But the fight didn’t yield many chances again, with Garbrandt landing a third low blow on Shaw before the end of the second round.
This resulted in Shaw being deducted another point, meaning he could not win the match without finishing the match.
This led to a bizarre third round where Shaw knew he had to go all out to save the fight and Garbrandt even ran away from his opponent to stay out of the danger zone.
“Loveless” managed to end the match after subduing Shaw in the grapple, but the match wasn’t over when the buzzer sounded and it was up to Dean to keep an angry Garbrandt away from Shaw.
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The two continued to argue before the results were official, with UFC security entering the cage to prevent anything from blowing up.
Garbrandt claimed victory on the scorecards via unanimous decision, while Shaw rued his crucial two-point deduction, with all judges scoring the fight 28-27 in the American’s favor.