According to the UFC brass, Glover Teixeira is the guy that nobody wants to fight. He has vicious power, black belt ground skills and a limitless engine. At UFC 153, Teixeira did nothing to dispel his believers.
For two rounds, Teixeira brutalized Fabio Maldonado. Somehow, Maldonado was standing at the end of those 10 minutes, but the cageside official had seen enough, and protected him from himself, stopping the fight. The official ruling was a second-round TKO.
"This guy, he's not human," Teixeira said afterward.
The rising light heavyweight contender said that prior to the fight, he had told his trainer that he didn't care how tough Maldonado's chin was, he was going to knock him out.
At first, it didn't seem like it would take him long to accomplish that. He knocked Maldonado down early in the first and spent the better part of the next five minutes smashing him with punches and elbows. Midway through the round, his face was bruised. By the end, it was bloodied, too.
But Maldonado showed amazing heart, and actually got back to his feet by the end of the first, stunning Teixeira with a trio of hard left hooks before the closing horn.
Teixeira came back out after the one-minute break and immediately took the fight to the ground, where again, he hammered Maldonado for most of the round, until the cageside official had seen enough.
Teixeira's 17th straight win improved his record to 19-2, and he'll certainly be moving up the division's rankings as a result.
Maldonado fell to 18-6.