Ateba Gautier was one of the biggest favorites at UFC 328 and he delivered an emphatic knockout over Ozzy Diaz to cap off the prelims on Saturday night.
Despite his dominant run through the UFC thus far, Gautier was somehow criticized for going to a decision last time out but in his return, he showed patience until Diaz threw out a lazy jab and the counter was a devastating overhand right that ended the fight. As soon as Gautier connected, Diaz folded and dropped to the ground with the referee rushing
in to stop the fight before any more punishment was dished out.
The finish came at 1:10 in the second round.
“I’ve been working a lot so I’m happy,” Gautier said after his latest win. “I’ve been working with my team so I know what I have to do. Exactly what we’ve been doing all this week and I did it.
“To be honest, my dream fight would be against Israel Adesanya. I really want to fight. Since I started MMA, I really admired him.”
While Diaz was displaying solid defense early, Gautier didn’t get frustrated or just immediately start throwing bombs in an attempt to get to his opponent. Instead, Gautier just kept picking his shots and kicking away at Diaz’s lead leg just waiting to unleash his power shots.
That came in the second round when Diaz tossed out his jab and Gautier countered over the top with the right hand that connected clean. It was an impressive answer to Diaz’s offense with Gautier moving to 5-0 in the UFC with the win.
It remains to be seen if the UFC is interested in matching up Gautier against somebody like Adesanya but it could be an interesting matchup between a former champion and a top prospect in the middleweight division.
