Dave Herman and John-Olav Einemo both had impressive combat sports careers before starting with the UFC, but it was Herman who came out ahead in the two men's Octagon debuts. Herman won in a TKO after a back-and-forth debut at UFC 131 in Vancouver on Saturday night.
Einemo started the bout by driving Herman into the fence, but Herman held him off. Einemo continued to stalk Herman around the Octagon. Einemo caught a leg kick and took Herman down. He moved into side control, which is where he should have been able to show off his submission skills, but Herman pushed Einemo off with his feet and they returned to stand-up.
In the second round, Einemo continued to stalk Herman around the cage, landing several punches along the way. After a short stop to give Herman his mouthpiece, Einemo went on the offensive, landing several strikes that appeared to wobble Herman, but he recovered to throw a knee and strikes to shake up Einemo. But then Einemo came back, throwing knees that appeared to staggered Herman.
The tide changed in the fight one more time when Herman delivered knees to Einemo's midsection. Einemo fell to the ground, and Herman followed up with big punches until the fight was stopped at 3:19 in the second round.
"I wanted to keep it on my feet against a world-class submission artist. I've been working on my conditioning at Team Quest because that's been an issue for me in the past. Once I started hitting him with big shots, I knew I could finish him," Herman said after the fight.
Both fighters came in with rich pedigrees before their Octagon debuts. Herman, who trains with Dan Henderson at Team Quest, was a Division I wrestler at Indiana and fought in Bellator and Sengoku. Einemo has world-class grappling, and is the only man to have beaten Roger Gracie at Abu Dhabi. But it was Herman's skills and abilities to withstand Einemo's strikes that won the fight, pushing Herman's record to 21-2, while Einemo now 6-2.
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