Leben

By FCF Staff

While Spike TV will not broadcast today’s UFC 138 event throughout North America until tonight, the promotion’s latest event has already wrapped up at Birmingham, England’s LG Arena. Today’s full results lie ahead.

The card’s headliner featured rising middleweight Mark Munoz taking on established veteran Chris Leben, in what was marked as the promotion’s first, five round, non-title fight.

After an opening round that saw both men land heavy shots and takedowns, Munoz started to get the better of Leben in the second, by taking his resilient opponent down and scoring heavy punches from above. One of the strikes opened a significant cut over the left eye of Leben, and when asked by the ringside physician soon after if he could still see and continue, Leben responded by saying yes.

As if sensing that the fight could be in jeopardy, Leben attempted to rally back and desperately hunted for a fight ending submission. After the round concluded, however, a bloodied Leben and his corner appeared to tell officials that he could not see properly and could not continue after all, awarding Munoz the TKO win.

In what was a short but memorable affair, Brad Pickett failed to deliver a victory in his UFC debut, while facing rising prospect Renan Barao. After several striking exchanges, the British bantamweight was stunned by a flying knee from the Brazilian, and then finished off with a rear-naked-choke.

Despite an aggressive effort from Papy Abedi, former welterweight contender Thiago Alves managed to negate the attacks of his opponent early on, and sent the UFC newcomer reeling to the canvas with a hard, right, left combo. From there, Alves made sure he returned to the winner’s column, by tapping out Abedi with a follow up rear-naked-choke.

Here are the results from today’s UFC 138 card.

Mark Munoz def. Chris Leben by TKO (corner stoppage) R2, 5:00

Renan Barao def. Brad Pickett by submission (rear-naked choke) R1, 4:09

Thiago Alves def. Papy Abedi by submission (rear-naked choke) R1, 3:32

Anthony Perosh def. Cyrille Diabate by submission (rear-naked choke) R2, 3:09

Terry Etim def. Edward Faaloloto via submission (guillotine choke) R1, 0:17

John Maguire def. Justin Edwards via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)

Philip De Fries def. Rob Broughton via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

Michihiro Omigawa def. Jason Young via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

Che Mills def. Chris Cope via TKO (strikes) – R1, 0:40

Chris Cariaso def. Vaughan Lee via split decision (28-29, 29-28, 29-28)