Jared Cannonier was more than excellent against Jack Hermansson and managed to win the main event at the UFC Fight Night 160 in Denmark. After this victory, the Killa Gorilla will no doubt become one of the biggest contenders for the title match in 185 pounds category. After 27 seconds in the second round, the referee in the ring decided to stop the fight, following Cannonier’s hard ground-and-pound surge, which left his opponent helpless.
The event at Copengahen’s Royal Hall, was the biggest one this weekend, and the whole world waited to see the outcome from this very interesting matchup. According to the bookies, Hermansson (20-5 MMA, 7-3 UFC) was a massive favorite to defeat Cannonier (13-4 MMA, 6-4 UFC), who only recently started competing in this division. His previous two matches against Anderson Silva and David Branch were the first at 185 pounds, and he solved both of them with a KO.
Now, even if there were some doubts about his quality as the two above-mentioned fighters are not at their peak, this win proved that he needs to be acknowledged as a serious threat.
“After a win like that, I feel on top of the world,” Cannonier said. I was more than ready for tonight’s challenge. “I was happy to receive that energy from Jack, and I was even more happy to give it back to him.”
The Norwegian fighter opened the match very aggressively, and he looked for a chance to bring down his opponent to the ground. However, each time he tried to do that, Cannonier was able to get out of the problematic situation. It was obvious that he analyzed Hermansson’s fighting skills very well. His trainers came up with great tactics on how to slow down the Joker who was constantly looking for a chance to drag Killa Gorilla in wrestling.
The opening part of the battle saw one unsuccessful takedown attempt of the favorite, and after that, Cannonier slowed down Hermansson with the two guys trading jabs from the standup.
Now, the second round started as the first on, with Hermansson rushing quickly towards Cannonier, but the American fighter sent a fantastic short uppercut which stunned his rival and sent him on the ground.
That was the chance he waited for and immediately jumped on the Joker, unleashing a fury of hard punches to the head of the opponent. Hermansson tried to get away, but there was no way to do so.
Cannonier wasn’t in any of the title-match talks before this match. On the other side, Hermansson was, but after this fight, it seems that the roles are changed. Still, Killa Gorilla didn’t want to be explicit in his intentions for the upcoming future.
“I don’t know what’s next for me. I don’t care about rankings. All I care about is winning the next fight,” he said but added that he wouldn’t want to fight anyone else who is not the champion.
“I’d rather call out the champion. Ain’t no point in calling anyone else except the one who holds the belt.”
