Yoel Romero Obliterates Luke Rockhold’s Skull With An Uppercut At UFC 221

https://streamable.com/17pnf

The UFC 221 main event in Perth, Australia has gone through a roller coaster ride of changes, but we ended up with a pretty compelling match up in the end between Luke Rockhold and Yoel Romero, the two best contenders in the stacked middleweight division. Originally slated for the interim middleweight title, things changed once again when Romero missed weight by nearly three pounds. As a result, only Rockhold was eligible to win the interim title … but many wondered if missing weight gave Romero an advantage in the fight since he didn’t have to deplete himself as much as Rockhold.

It’s hard to know if that came into play, but Romero conserved his energy through to the third round when he exploded on Rockhold, hitting him with a huge overhand right that staggered the former middleweight champ. He followed it up with some more vicious blows that put Rockhold against the cage. A massive uppercut flattened Rockhold and thankfully ended things at 1:28. While Romero may not get to walk away with the interim middleweight title, he’ll most likely still earn another shot at undisputed middleweight champ Robert Whittaker.

https://twitter.com/RobbieBarstool/status/962557444852518912

Afterwards Yoel got right in Luke’s face and kissed him on the cheek several times, repeating that he was professional. It was a tense moment. After the fiasco at the weigh ins where Romero missed weight, the two almost came to blows during their face off, with Rockhold telling Romero he wasn’t being professional. For some crazy reason, commission members didn’t separate the fighters for a good half minute, with Rockhold looking away and trying to go to his happy place while the guy who just KO’d his middleweight title ambitions basically s**t talked him.

To break down the fight, the first round saw both fighters staying cautious and feeling each other out, Rockhold firing off leg kicks and staying out of reach while Romero responded with feints and a few jumping attacks that came nowhere close to landing. Round two started with Romero following through on an explosive rush, putting Rockhold against the cage and unleashing with dangerous strikes and body shots. He repeated this a few times over the round with decent success, while Rockhold was left working his jab during the quieter parts of the round. Round three saw both fighters being patient until Romero once again exploded, this time catching and stunning Rockhold with his hard charge. Never one to let up, Romero followed through on his wounded prey and put Luke down.

Romero’s win is going to leave a bad taste in the mouths of some due to his missing weight. He’s just the latest fighter to miss weight and then win their fight, and given how terrible the final pounds of a cut are you can make the argument that coming in overweight and taking the fine is worth it to walk into the Octagon bigger and less tired. The UFC has gone as far as refusing to pay fighters who don’t end up going ahead with fights against overweight opponents, just adding to the bad vibes. Now Romero, a fighter with a history of questionable unsportsmanlike behavior, likely earned himself a title shot after missing weight in a title fight.

https://twitter.com/ZPGIFs/status/962561038062424064

https://twitter.com/DaveMMAdden/status/962557629888278528

Still, you can’t deny he is a destroyer of worlds, and a rematch against champ Robert Whittaker will be crazy. We just have to hope there’ll be less controversy to mar things up next time around.