TUF winners Chad Laprise and Elias Theodorou both win in Halifax
The two winners from the recent season of The Ultimate Fighter Nations both debuted in Halifax on Saturday with Chad Laprise and Elias Theodorou getting wins by decision.
Laprise took on Yosdenis Cedeno and while the fight started out close, the Canadian separated himself by a large margin by the time the final horn sounded. While Laprise is known well for his knockouts, he was working for the takedown for a big part of this fight.
He got Cedeno down several times and took his back looking to finish by submission, but the Cuban born fighter resisted to keep the fight going round by round. In the third round, Laprise saw his biggest strikes land as he busted up Cedeno's right eye, but instead of targeting the rapidly bruised area he opted for another takedown to seal the deal for the decision.
Laprise scored a shutout with 30-27 scores across the board.
It took TUF Nations middleweight winner Elias Theodorou the better part of three rounds to finally take over and win his fight against Bruno Santos on Saturday night. Santos is a hard-nosed wrestler, who is known for taking his opponents to the mat and grinding them out over the course of a fight.
Theodorou struggled to stop Santos' takedowns early, but he reversed positions multiple times throughout the fight while battering the Brazilian with strikes. By the time the fight ended, Theodorou had out struck Santos by a three to one margin.
The third round was by far the best for the Canadian as he took Santos down, jumped on his back and started blasting away with punches and hammer fists. He didn't get the finish, but it was clear that Santos was out of gas and fighting on instinct by the time the horn sounded to signify the end of the bout.
The judges all scored the fight 29-28 in favor of Theodorou.
It probably won't be a performance he'll hold up as one of the best of his career, but Theodorou battled through a tough opponent to get his first UFC win in his post-TUF career. One other note -- the four fighters from TUF Nations who competed on the card (Laprise, Theodorou, Nordine Taleb and Olivier Aubin-Mercier) went 4-0 on Saturday night.
