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What's the story?
Tonight's UFC Fight Night 136 main card started off with a brilliant Welterweight fight between former division title challenger Thiago Alves and Russian native Alexey Kunchenko, who earned a pretty hard-fought win over the former at the Olympic Stadium earlier today.
In case you didn't know...
Prior to signing with the UFC, Russian fighter Alexey Kunchenko established himself as one of the most feared Professional MMA fighters of all time, thanks to his undefeated streak of 17 fights.
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Before making his jump to the UFC, Kunchenko had previously competed for promotions such as M-1, where his very recent wins were against the likes of Sergey Romanov and Alexander Butenko, who was defeated by Kunchenko via TKO at M-1 Challenge 90.
The heart of the matter
UFC Fight Night 136 marked the Octagon debut of former M1 Global Champion Alexey Kunchenko, who for his first fight in the UFC, stepped into the cage against former Welterweight Title challenger Thiago Alves.
Alves, who is currently coming off a knockout loss to Curtis Milender in his last Octagon appearance in Austin, Texas, was looking to score a huge win over the favorite Kunchenko, as both fighters got us underway with a solid back-and-forth first round that saw Thiago Alves reply with some crisp combination in response to Kunchenko's brutal kicks.
Following the conclusion of the first round, both men then kick-start Round 2 with some delightful kicks to the body, as Thiago Alves was finally starting to find his rhythm. Alves with some nice kicks and punches as well, as Kunchecko takes some brutal shots to the body without any sort of response.
At the start of round three, Alves once again starts working on his kicks, but Kunchenko, on this occasion, was clever enough to counter most of his opponent's moves and also caught Alves with some solid combinations as well.
By the end of round three, we then went to the judges' scorecard as Kunchenko defeated Alves via split decision with a final scoreline of 30-27, 29-28 x2.
What's next?
During Kunchenko's post-fight interview, the Russian fighter decided to call out Octagon veteran Donald 'Cowboy' Cerrone and it'll now be interesting to note if the UFC does indeed decide to book a fight between the two or not.
