UFC Vegas 26 results: Marcos Rogerio de Lima puts on smothering performance to beat Maurice Greene

Marcos Rogerio de Lima stuck to the basics to ensure he got the win at UFC Vegas 26 with a suffocating performance to defeat Maurice Greene.

A fiery opening from de Lima then gave way to a multitude of takedowns and just smothering Greene on the canvas over and over again from the first round until the last. When the fight ended, de Lima knew he had done more than enough to get the victory and the scorecards reflected his dominance with the judges giving him the fight 30-26, 30-26 and 30-27 as he moves to 7-5 overall in the UFC.

As soon as the fight started, de Lima was swinging for the fences with every punch, looking for the early knockout. Greene managed to avoid most of the big bombs but de Lima did manage to close the distance and bring the fight down the ground where he looked to chip away with punches.

While Greene did his best to avoid damage, he was still stuck underneath de Lima as the Brazilian did a good job pressing him against the cage, which gave him no room to actually escape.

With so much success on the ground, de Lima wasted no time repeating the same strategy in the second round as he got the takedown and then attempted to hammer Greene into the canvas.

De Lima was absolutely smothering Greene and the former Ultimate Fighter competitor was just stuck underneath him, failing to offer much of anything in return other than playing defense by holding onto his opponent. As the second round came to a close, de Lima unloaded a huge right hand that actually landed after the horn sounded, which caused referee Herb Dean to offer a strong warning for the foul.

While that late shot obviously fired up Greene, he still couldn’t do much different once the fight got restarted with de Lima immediately working inside and bringing them crashing back down to the mat. Again and again, de Lima was doing just enough to pepper away with punches to prevent a standup as the final seconds ticked away.

A quick look at his record shows de Lima has never lost two fights in a row in the UFC and he didn’t intend on starting on Saturday night. Meanwhile, Greene falls to 1-4 in his past five fights after a promise start to his career inside the octagon.