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By Shawn Ennis, MMATorch Senior Columnist
The narrative going into the fight between Yoel Romero and Tim Kennedy was that cardio would tell the tale. And in the weirdest way possible, that's exactly what happened. Romero was measured and effective in the first round, peppering Kennedy with heavy kicks and taking him down at will. Kennedy was able to get a couple of takedowns during the first frame, but Romero popped up immediately.
That theme continued through the second round, but Kennedy was much more competitive. The round was tough to call until the final seconds, when Kennedy finished with a flurry that sealed the round in his favor, pummeling Romero and leaving him literally saved by the bell.
That's where things got weird. Romero's corner left the stool in the cage after the one minute between rounds had expired, and they left his eye smeared with too much vaseline. This was clearly a stall tactic employed to help Romero recover, but it went unpunished by referee John McCarthy. Kennedy thought at that point that he had won the fight.
A little over a minute later, the fight was over, but in Romero's favor. Romero came out and stung Kennedy early, putting him down and finishing the fight not long after that with some clean (and also borderline illegal) ground and pound.
All in all, it was a great contest, if a strange one. It certainly wouldn't be surprising if we were to see either a rematch and/or some kind of modification of the result.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
STAFF COLUMNISTS: Shawn Ennis - Jason Amadi
Frank Hyden - Rich Hansen
Chris Park - Matt Pelkey
Interested in joining MMATorch's writing team? Send idea for a theme to your column (for Specialist section) or area of interest (i.e. TV Reporter) along with a sample of writing to mmatorch@gmail.com.
