Beating the Odds: UFC 195

Abel Trujillo saw the doubt and shrugged.

A +135 underdog according to BetDSI.com, Trujillo authored the only upset on the UFC 195 main card, as he submitted Tony Sims (-160) with a guillotine choke on Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Trujillo finished it 3:18 into round one, rebounding from back-to-back losses to Gleison Tibau and Tony Ferguson.

Elevation Fight Team’s Sims landed some counter punches and defended an early takedown, but a poor decision to try a takedown of his own proved to be his undoing. The 30-year-old wandered into the choke and a second straight defeat in the Ultimate Fighting Championship lightweight division.

The prelims saw three upsets.

Drew Dober was a slight underdog at +179 against Scott Holtzman (-211), who replaced the injured Erik Koch on short notice. Dober used takedowns and ground-and-pound to secure a unanimous decision and hand Holtzman his first professional loss.

Meanwhile, highly touted Irishman Joseph Duffy entered his three-round battle with American Top Team’s Dustin Poirier as a -149 favorite, only to wind up on the wrong side of a unanimous verdict: 30-26, 30-27 and 30-27. Duffy’s technical boxing was on display in spurts and he worked for a late triangle choke, but Poirier (+128) utilized takedowns and punishing ground-and-pound in carving out his path to a third consecutive victory.

Finally, in the most significant upset of the night, onetime Legacy Fighting Championship titleholder Alex Morono (+315) took a controversial split decision from Kyle Noke (-385). Judges Sal D’Amato and Chris Lee saw it 29-28 for Morono, while judge Patricia Morse Jarman scored it 30-27 for Noke. Morono agreed to make his UFC debut on 11 days’ notice as an injury replacement for Kelvin Gastelum. Noke landed more significant strikes, according to FightMetric, but Morono did more damage, bloodying the Australian’s nose in the middle of the match before threatening with a deep armbar in the waning moments of round three.