Jarred Brooks scooped Jose Torres up and took him for a ride to the center of the cage for a slam – and made the highlight reel for the wrong reason.
Brooks (13-2 MMA, 1-2 UFC) went for a showy slam, but wound up dropping himself on the back of his own head while putting Torres (8-0 MMA, 1-0 UFC) on his back. He knocked himself out, and Torres quickly rolled over and landed ground-and-pound till the fight was stopped at the 2:55 mark of the second round.
The flyweight bout opened up the preliminary card of today’s UFC Fight Night 131 event at Adirondack Bank Center in Utica, N.Y. It streamed on UFC Fight Pass ahead of the rest of the card on FS1.
Brooks circled outside and fired off quick jabs early. He shot for a takedown 20 seconds in, but Torres stuffed it. Brooks got a sharp right hand to land not long after. Then he tried a spinning back fist that was blocked.
But moments later, he returned to the spinning attack and put Torres on the canvas. Brooks followed him down and went after a front choke and put Torres in a bad position. Torres defended the choke and dealt with Brooks kneeing him to the body, and midway through he was able to get back to his feet. Another spinning back fist partially landed for Brooks, and 30 seconds later he landed a takedown with 75 seconds left in the round. He moved around and took Torres’ back and worked for a rear-naked choke with Torres back on his feet and closed out the round that way.
Brooks went back to the spinning fist 40 seconds into the second round, and Torres was able to time it and wrestled around to take Brooks’ back. Once Brooks broke free, he continued to fire heavy hands. Torres tried to return with his jab, but wasn’t getting much to land. His aggression seemed to increase midway through the round.
Then Brooks moved in for a double-leg takedown. He got Torres up in the air and instead of dumping him forward and to the left, he dumped him for a big slam onto his back. And while the move was a highlight-reel one, Brooks also landed on his own head. The impact knocked him out, and Torres rolled over and punched until Dan Miragliotta shut things down at the 2:55 mark of the round.
“I was never worried about the opponent, but I definitely was about the debut – the UFC, the lights,” Torres said. “In fact, I told my coaches in there I could feel the lights on me – it was a lot hotter than I expected. In that first round, I was dealing with that, but I’m a person that needs to be woken up. I need to get punched, to get dropped so I can get going.
“You can see in the second round, regardless that he knocked himself out, I was starting to get moving and coming forward a lot more. When I got in that position, I knew he was going to go for the slam so I decided to go parallel and see where it went from there. Just happened he fell on his shoulder and head and knocked himself out.”
After a perfect start to his professional career, all under the Titan FC banner, Torres won his UFC debut. Brooks lost for the second straight time after a perfect 13-0 start to his pro career.
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