John Lineker spent the first two rounds of his UFC 198 bantamweight matchup with Rob Font on Saturday night stalking the elusive Bostonian, but never quite catching him for any period of time.
In the third round, he finally was able to pour it on, catching him and working him over on the ground for much of the round, and putting the stamp on his unanimous decision victory. The judges scores in Curitiba, Brazil were 30-27, 29-28, and 30-26.
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The tone was set in the opening round, when Lineker, the former flyweight who was giving up size to his opponent, used his speed advantage to push the pace. Font, for his part, seemed to content to counter and circle away.
But Lineker finally caught the tiring Font over the final five minutes, winning the round decisively and punctuating things with a big final flurry in the closing seconds.
With the win, the Brazilian Lineker improved to 27-7 and 2-0 since going up to 135. Font dropped to 12-2 and had an 11-fight win streak snapped.