Roman Kopylov finally picked up his first win inside the octagon with a blistering third-round knockout to finish Alessio Di Chirico at UFC Paris.
It was Kopylov’s constant barrage with body kicks that made the final possible. He was just hitting Di Chirico in the stomach throughout the fight. Once Di Chirico had to start defending his body, Kopylov unleashed a huge combination with his punches that ended with the Italian fighter slumped face first on the canvas.
The official stoppage came at 1:09 in the third round.
“First round, everything was going well, the second round, something started to fail,” Kopylov explained. “I only had one choice to take the fight in the third round. To win, I needed to finish. We found a way.”
Di Chirico and Kopylov were throwing serious heavy leather as the middleweights were both trying to score a knockout before the opening round expired. Kopylov was displaying superior speed on the feet as he was throwing lightning quick punches and kicks while Di Chirico was really loading up with one strike at a time in return.
Di Chirico finally connected with a pair of stiff straight right hands but Kopylov was quick to fire back with a blistering combination of his own. That led to a takedown attempt from Di Chirico as he sought to slow down the speedy Kopylov, who was able to shrug off his attempts before resetting in the center of the cage.
While Di Chirico was still marching forward, Kopylov was doing a great job countering his aggressiveness as he also hammered his opponent with a body kick that reverberated throughout the arena. Kopylov continued snapping off those kicks until it set up the combination that allowed him to push forward with several stinging punches — with the last two putting Di Chirico down and out on the canvas.
Kopylov won a crucial win Saturday after dropping two fights in his UFC debut. He also scored a knockout victory over Di Chirico, an older opponent. This was his most impressive performance yet.
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