Markham Leads Way for Newcomers with Huge KO of Farber

By Thomas Gerbasi

LAS VEGAS, July 19 – Veteran knockout artist Rory Markham lived up to his reputation in his first UFC bout, spectacularly taking out Brodie Farber with a kick to the head in just 97 seconds of their UFC Fight Night preliminary bout at The Pearl at The Palms in Las Vegas.

Despite the outcome, Farber won the standup battle in the early moments of the bout, rocking Markham repeatedly, primarily with his right hand. Markham backpedaled, trying to clear his head, but as Farber moved in a little too recklessly, the Chicago native stopped and exploded with a right kick to the jaw, knocking Farber down and out at the 1:37 mark.

With the win, Markham improves to 16-4. Farber falls to 13-4.

The Ultimate Fighter season seven’s Tim Credeur showed off his ever improving striking game in his middleweight bout against castmate Cale Yarbrough, knocking out his foe in under two minutes.

“People think I don’t know how to use my hands,” said Credeur, a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt. “They’d better start re-thinking that.”

Most expected Credeur (11-4) to take the fight to the mat against the kickboxing debutant, but instead, the Louisiana native decided to stand and bang, and he dominated until a flurry of shots dropped Yarbrough (0-1) and forced referee Mario Yamasaki to halt the bout 1:54 into the fight.

Santa Rosa, California’s Nate Loughran may not have looked like he won his middleweight debut against fellow debutant Johnny Rees, but despite a cut and a nasty welt on his face, he emerged victorious, submitting ‘The Hater Hurter’ in one round.

Rees (10-1) got the better of his foe in the first half of the opening round, grounding and pounding the Californian and opening a cut over his left eye and raising a welt under his right with the assault. But the David Terrell-trained Loughran (9-0) showed great poise under pressure, locking Rees up from the bottom and firing off elbows that stunned his foe. The end came soon after when Rees was forced to tap out from a triangle choke at 4:21 of the round.

“I had a minute and a half left, I knew there was no way he was getting out of that,” said Loughran of the finishing triangle.

Brad Blackburn was certainly ‘Bad’ news for James Giboo, stopping the Iowan with pinpoint strikes in the second round of their welterweight clash.

Giboo (11-3) sought the takedown immediately, but Blackburn’s sprawl was solid. His punching power was even better as he rocked and dropped Giboo. On the mat, the action stalled, forcing a standup from referee Steve Mazzagatti, and Blackburn (13-9-1, 1 NC) went back to dominating the standup, knocking his foe down again with under a minute to go, but he was unable to finish before the round ended.

Blackburn picked up where he left off in round two, knocking Giboo to the mat after three successive rights. Giboo gamely rose, but he was on rubbery legs and every shot was rocking him. Finally, after another accurate 1-2 to the jaw, Giboo fell to the canvas and Mazzagatti had seen enough, halting the bout at 2:29 of the second stanza.

California’s Shannon Gugerty did his mentor Dean Lister proud in the opener, submitting Maine’s Dale Hartt in the first round of their lightweight bout.

In control almost immediately, Gugerty (11-2) took Hartt (5-1) down and kept him down, eventually fighting his way into the mount position. Hartt gave up his back in an attempt to escape, but Gugerty would not let him off the hook, sinking in a rear naked choke that produced a tapout at the 3:33 mark.