Taiyilake Nueraji delivered an emphatic finish in his octagon debut but only after he blasted Kiefer Crosbie with an illegal knee at UFC Shanghai.
While it was a lopsided fight from start to finish, Nueraji ends up with an asterisk next to his win after he was dominating Crosbie on the ground but during a scramble he decided to launch a strike while his opponent was clearly still down on the ground. Replays showed the illegal knee was completely blatant with Crosbie struggling to find his balance
afterwards while also suffering a gruesome cut across his face.
Referee Marc Goddard intervened immediately and decided to issue a two-point deduction to Nueraji for the foul but it was clear that Crosbie was completely compromised after effectively getting knocked out from the knee.
Rather than take a full five minutes to recover from the illegal blow, Crosbie waited just a couple of moments before he told Goddard that he was good to go.
It didn’t take long for Nueraji to put Crosbie back down on the ground as he began unloading punches and elbows in succession. Crosbie has no defense this time and he succumbed to the strikes with the end coming at 3:33 in the opening round.
“I already said it won’t take three rounds,” Nueraji said about his win without addressing the illegal knee. “It is my obligation to give you a big show. I was determined to finish this in the first round.”
An impressive win in his debut but Nueraji certainly didn’t want his first appearance to get marred by controversy, which is exactly what happened with the finishing sequence in that fight.
Still, Nueraji appears to be a prospect worth watching while Crosbie falls to 0-3 in the UFC after deciding to continue the fight after he got fouled and then getting finished just seconds later.
