Luke Riley wasn’t impressed by his performance but he still got the job done with a unanimous decision win over Michael Aswell Jr. in the UFC London co-main event.
The fight primarily played out as a back-and-forth striking battle with Riley connecting with the more impactful shots round after round. When it was over, the judges all agreed with 30-27 scores across the board as Riley got the nod and move to 2-0 in his young UFC career.
Afterwards, Riley seemed less than enthusiastic despite the outcome.
‘He’s tough, durable, he’s got a head like a cinder block,” Riley said. “The performance, give it like 5 out of 10, if that. I’m a perfectionist, I got caught too many times. I won.
“People are going to be gunning for me now. I know a lot of people at 145 are going to be signing up to fight me.”
As soon as the fight started, Aswell was mashing down on the gas pedal, moving forward and looking to close the distance on Riley. Once against the cage, Aswell was peppering away with punches and elbows but Riley defended well and escaped the position, although he was still stuck on his back foot during the exchanges.
When he found room to work, Riley cracked Aswell with some solid shots but the American was more than willing to fire right back at him. But once Riley was able to pursue Aswell with more aggression, he was snapping off a slick lead jab and hammering away with good power punches.
A right hand slipped through the defense followed a left behind it that snapped Aswell’s head around.
The second round saw more of the same with Riley landing the more effective strikes but Aswell was still hanging tough. With less than two minutes remaining, Aswell slammed home a couple of nasty punches of his own that connected with a considerable thud.
Still, Riley was connecting with the more effective strikes, although he wasn’t consistent with his delivery and that allowed Aswell to make it a tougher fight on him.
While Aswell was technically landing more strikes, Riley was just dishing out more punishment whenever he threw together his combinations. It wasn’t the statement finish he wanted but Riley was clearly doing more work across all three rounds to win the decision.
Coming from the same team as UFC star Paddy Pimblett, Riley was already getting a lot of attention heading into his sophomore effort and while he didn’t score a highlight reel win, he got the victory and he’ll look to improve his next outing.
