Michel Pereira battered and bloodied Zachary Reese en route to a closely contested victory over the middleweight standout at UFC Houston.
Pereira came out swinging big early, connecting with a brutal body kick before sitting down Reese with a nasty right hand. However, the story of the opening round was a pair of phantom low blows from Reese. Though the replay appeared to show that they were clean kicks, referee Herb Dean still awarded Pereira his five minutes of recovery time.
Fortunately, Pereira didn’t need much time to recover.
After a rough start to the fight, Reese appeared to land the more impactful shots in the latter half of the round. That trend continued in the second as Pereira appeared to be losing steam.
Following an apparent eye poke from Reese early in the second, the Texas native scored his first takedown of the fight. Pereira quickly scrambled back to his feet and, in the process, caught Reese with a shot that drew a flood of blood from the American’s nose.
As both fighters started to lose steam in the third, the pace began to slow. Still, that didn’t stop them from furiously throwing hands in the final 10 seconds. With neither fighter landing the fight-ending blow, we went to the scorecards for what would be a much closer decision than expected.
Official Result: Michel Pereira def. Zachary Reese via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28).
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