The youngest fighter on the UFC roster and fan-favorite Raul Rosas makes his return in Louisville. He’ll be taking on TUF 29 winner Ricky Turcios in a rescheduled bout from February.
Raul Rosas vs. Ricky Turcios Preview
Raul Rosas took the UFC by storm as a 17-year-old prodigy in 2022. The now 19-year-old Rosas is 2-1 in the promotion and coming off a massive first-round KO over Terrence Mitchell. His hype has died down since his debut after a loss to Christian Rodriguez in his second UFC fight. However, Rosas still has global attention and is still so young with a long future ahead. He has trained with some of the best fighters in the world in the lead-up to this fight. Rosas was forced out of their previously scheduled fight during the event due to an illness while warming up in the back.
Ricky Turcios has had a slow start in the UFC. Since winning TUF 29 back in 2021, he’s fought just twice since and hasn’t fought since November of 2022. Turcios initially didn’t want to fight Rosas following the last-second cancellation in February but has since changed his mind. He also holds a 2-1 record in the UFC with two split decision wins. Turcios is coming off a win over Kevin Natividad but fell to Aiemann Zahabi in his previous fight. He looks to get back to action and string together a pair of wins tonight.
Fight Recap
The fight started with Turcios throwing some massive kicks upstairs and to the body. Once things settled down Rosas landed a takedown around a minute in and looked to advance position while Turcios looked to keep him at bay. Halfway through the round Turcios worked back to his feet but was taken back down. Turcios landed some nice elbows while against the cage but gave up his back. The former TUF champion then took the back of Rosas and locked up a rear naked choke. Turcios tightened the choke in deep but had to let go and subsequently had his back taken until the end of the round.
Round 2 started at a high pace with Rosas moving in and Turcios landing counters before Rosas got the fight down. He quickly worked to the back and locked in a body triangle with four minutes still left in the round. Rosas found some early trouble but eventually locked in the rear naked choke. At first, the submission was on the jaw but Rosas worked under the chin and found the neck to force the tap.
The submission came at 2:22 of Round 2.
UFC Fighters React to Raul Rosas’ Impressive Submission Win
Featured Image Credit via Embed from Getty Images
