This is the UFC on Versus 1 live blog for Alessio Sakara vs. James Irvin, a middleweight bout on tonight's Versus card.Irvin is making his first appearance since losing to Anderson Silva in July 2008. It's also his debut as a middleweight.
The live blog begins below.
Round 1: Sakara connected with an early right, but Irvin shrugged it off. Irvin is cautious early, and Sakara takes advantage with his activity. He's not pushing a super pace, but just looks for combos, then re-sets. Sakara lands a couple strikes to the body, then a left hook. Irvin got poked in the eye, and Sakara went to try to finish, but the referee Josh Rosenthal halted him and called timeout. The doctor gave Irvin a chance to recover, but he complained he couldn't see. During the timeout, Rosenthal ruled that the eye injury came on a punch rather than an illegal eyepoke, and he awarded Sakara a TKO win after Irvin couldn't continue.
A replay indicated that Rosenthal made the right call, and that Sakara hit him with a clean punch.
Winner: Sakara via TKO (injury stoppage) at 3:01
More Coverage: Sakara TKOs Irvin | UFC on Versus 1 Results
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