Friday’s UFC Fight Night Albany main event between heavyweight contenders Derrick Lewis and Shamil Abdurakhimov wasn’t pretty, but Lewis did get the finish at Times Union Center in Albany, N.Y., stopping his foe in the fourth round.
“That was one of my most terrible fights,” Lewis said. “I didn’t like my performance at all. I know it was a five-round fight, I just tried to pace myself, but that was some bulls—. I expected a better performance.”
A win’s a win though, and for Houston’s Lewis, it was his fifth in a row.
An early Round 1 kick by Lewis allowed Abdurakhimov to get the bout to the mat, and after escaping from a kimura attempt, Lewis got to his feet. Abdurakhimov kept Lewis tied up against the fence, but Lewis got loose as the round entered its second half. Lewis wasn’t able to find any openings for his striking though, which allowed the elusive Abdurakhimov to get the fight back to the mat late in the round.
Abdurakhimov kept his smothering attack going in Round 2, drawing a restart from referee Dan Miragliotta the first time, but it didn’t deter the Dagestan native, who turned practically every Lewis misstep into a clinch or takedown. And while the fans didn’t like it, Abdurakhimov wasn’t going to stop a strategy that was working.
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