Michel Pereira battered and bloodied Zachary Reese en route to a closely contested victory over the middleweight standout UFC Houston.
Pereira came out swinging early, connecting with a brutal body kick before dropping Reese with a nasty right hand. The story of the opening round, however, was a pair of phantom low blows from Reese. Although the replay appeared to show that they were clean kicks, referee Herb Dean still awarded Pereira his five minutes of recovery time.
Fortunately, Pereira didn’t need much time to recover.
After a rough start to the fight, Reese seemed to land the most impactful shots in the second half of the round. That trend continued in the second, when Pereira appeared to lose steam.
After an apparent eye poke from Reese early in the second, the Texas native scored his first takedown of the fight. Pereira quickly got back to his feet and caught Reese with a shot that drew a flood of blood from the American’s nose.
As both fighters began to lose steam in the third, the pace began to slow. Still, that didn’t stop them from furiously throwing hands in the final 10 seconds. With neither fighter landing the decisive blow, we went to the scorecards for what would be a much closer decision than expected.
Official result: Michel Pereira def. Zachary Reese via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28).
Watch highlights of Zachary Reese vs. Michel Pereira during UFC Houston:
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