Jamahal Hill seems ready for the big leagues. Hill beat Thiago Santos in a brutal manner on the fifth anniversary of his professional mixed martial arts debut. Hill stopped Santos with a strike in the fourth round of the main event to end Saturday’s UFC fight night at the Apex in Las Vegas.
A relatively quiet first round was the upcoming appetizers. Hill took the lead to press forward as Santos mixed strikes and knockout attempts. UFC Fight Night is full of exciting fights and endings. That energy flowed into the second quarter of the main event when Hill scrambled away and bounced back from Santos’ knockout attempt, opening the door for some frantic action. Hill appeared to hurt Santos in a frantic exchange before stopping him later with a tight right uppercut. Santos then threw all his weight on a partially connected hard loop shot. Hill usually stays technical when his opponents slow down.
“It’s not a bar fight,” Santos’ coach told his fighters between the first and second rounds, according to an interpreter on the UFC broadcast. “Damn, what are you doing? This isn’t a bar fight.”
Santos listened to the feedback, and his commitment to wrestling paid off in round 3. Hill found it increasingly difficult to reject the advances of his opponents. Santos didn’t do much with the knockout, but it added an important wrinkle to the fight’s momentum. Round 4 started the same way, and Round 2 ended with both swaggering. Hill landed more often, but Santos slammed his foe back on the head with a hard punch. Hill hurts Santos and kills him. Both were swinging wildly, but Santos collapsed under pressure and Hill fired with an elbow until referee Herber Dean stepped in.
“You all have to give up that experience,” Hill told UFC commentator Michael Bisping after the fight. “You’ve never experienced someone like me. I’ve met a lot of people like you, though.”
Hill improved his career record to 11-1, 1 NC, and pieced together a three-game winning streak. Hill suggested a fight with former UFC light heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz next. Santos is 22-11 and has lost five of their last six games. You can trace Santos’ last winning streak back to 2018-2019.
All 10 games on Saturday night ended in suspension. It is the second card in modern UFC history with a 100% completion rate. Another returned in November 2014, when Luke Rockhold vs. Michael Bisping’s fight night event in the main event saw all 11 fights in the final bell. end before the sound.
