Phil Davis and Lyoto Machida went to the judges once again.
The former light heavyweight champions met in a rematch from their UFC 163 battle over seven years ago in the main event of Belaltor 245 Friday night at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn. Davis earned a unanimous decision that was mired with controversy in the first meeting.
After spending another 15 minutes together, Davis took a commanding lead in the series in another close affair.
Both fighters were very cautious early on as they each scored with singular leg and body kicks. Davis landed a nice head kick around the halfway point of the round that Machida ate, and then answered with one of his own. The kicking exchanges continued throughout the round while Davis was using a variety of feints to likely set up his wrestling in the later rounds.
Davis opened up the second round with a hard kick to the body. “Mr. Wonderful” would land to the legs of Machida as well, almost attempting to beat the former UFC champion at his own game. Davis continued to land hard kicks to the body of his opponent, while Machida had a head kick blocked heading into the final two minutes. Davis would land a right land that got Machida’s attention and forced, what looked to be, a slip by Machida. Davis would catch a Machida body kick and nearly got a takedown as the round ended. Machida clearly got away with a fence grab or two.
The pacing didn’t change much to begin the final stanza. Both Davis and Machida scored with hard leg kicks. With just under three minutes to go, Machida landed a clean one-two combination, followed by a left hand. After Davis lands a right hand, Machida lands a leg kick, answered by Davis. Final minute of the fight and Machida counters a Davis leg kick with a big right hand. Another hard leg kick by Machida has changed the momentum a bit. High kick lands by Machida right before the final bell.
In the end, Davis improved to 2-0 in the series via split decision.
