Cory Sandhagen Dominates Rob Font at the UFC Nashville

Cory Sandhagen beat Rob Font in the main event of tonight’s UFC Nashville spectacle. Sandhagen earned a unanimous victory, with all three judges scoring in his favor, 50-45.

It wasn’t a spectacular main event, and the crowd showed displeasure during and after the end of the battle. Instead of seeing the two trading blows in the middle of the ring, the fans in Nashville witnessed one grinding contest, which was also one-sided.

The No.4 in the UFC bantamweight rankings was dominant from the first moment of the battle, imposing his tempo, and displaying an effective wrestling, which was something nobody expected. Sandhagen, a vicious striker, was seven-of-seven in takedown attempts being in control 19 minutes and 38 seconds.

Cory Sandhagen makes his case for a title shot at #UFCNashville 😤 pic.twitter.com/VRBugcphr2

— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) August 6, 2023

Also, the Sandman had five times as many strikes, 132 compared to only 25 his rival landed.

Font constantly struggled to find his pace, mostly because Sandhagen took the business to the mat where he tactically collected points squeezing the life out of Font. It appears that he didn’t have enough time to prepare after accepting the bout on a short notice. Originally, Sandhagen was scheduled to fight Umar Nurmagomedov.

After the battle, the Sandman revealed his expectations, and they include a title fight. The UFC 292 main event is between the reigning champion, Aljamain Sterling and Sean O’Malley, and Sandhagen wants to challenge the winner of the same.

This was the third straight victory for Sandhagen, who defeated Song Yadong and Marlon Vera in the previous two, bouncing back from
back-to-back losses to TJ Dillashaw and Petr Yan, the latter being a title bout.

On the other side, Font posted his third loss in the last four events. After having decision losses to Jose Aldo and Marlon Vera, he destroyed Adrian Yanez via first-round KO. Yet, he couldn’t add another win to his column and stay in the title mix.

The co-main event saw Tatiana Suarez submitting Jessica Andrade in the second round. Suarez is emerging as one of the top challengers in the strawweight, with her still being undefeated after ten battles.

Her career was slowed down by health issues and pauses caused by the same. Suarez already had one win this year, the previous one against Montana De La Rosa.

As for Andrade, this was the third consecutive defeat she posted. The former strawweight champ didn’t look good, losing this one without proper resistance.

Absolutely beautiful from Diego Lopes off his back. #UFCNashville pic.twitter.com/hJjV75d2XM

— Spinnin Backfist (@SpinninBackfist) August 6, 2023

Dustin Jacoby is back in the winning column with a first-round victory over Kennedy Nzechukwu. This is a big deal for the 35-year-old who lost his latest two events. Diego Lopes performed maybe the highlight of the night while submitting Gavin Tucker. The Mexican pulled away an armbar, setting up the same after an acrobatic move.

In other fights, Tanner Boser was better than Aleksa Camur after a unanimous decision and L’udovit Klein was better than Ignacio Bahamondes via the same way.

Up next is the UFC on ESPN 51, with the highlight between two welterweights, Rafael dos Anjos and Vicente Luque. The co-main event is between Khalil Roundtree Jr. and Chris Daukaus.