Las Vegas- Some wins are done convincingly, others are not. At last night’s UFC 143 McKinney based fighter Edwin Figueroa walked out of the cage with a victory over Alex Caceres but not without much adversity and even a little controversy.
During the first round of the bantamweight bout between the two, a wayward inside leg kick from Caceres caught Figueroa in the growing. After a recovery period, Figueroa came back and dropped Caceres with a solid head kick. Caceres recovered and after a scramble found himself in the mount position. Figueroa eventually had his back taken by Caceres and was fighting off a rear naked choke attack. Figueroa survived.
In the second Caceres landed another inadvertent shot to the growing of Figueroa sending him down. This shot cost Caceres two points on the cards. Again Figueroa recovered and made it through the second round despite the devastating growing kick.
When it was all said and done, Figueroa was awarded a split decision victory that obviously pointed to the two point deduction in the second round.
A two point deduction is very rare; however, referee Herb Dean issued a “strong” warning in the first round following the first foul. Then in the second round following the second foul Dean elected to take to points from Caceres instead of the typical one point deduction.
With the victory Figueroa moves to 9-1 overall in his MMA career. The McKinney resident’s only loss came in his UFC debut against Michael McDonald but netted him “Fight of the Night” honors.
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