One Championship: Eddie Alvarez suffers shock loss to Timofey Nastyukhin on debut; Demetrious Johnson wins
- Former UFC champion goes to Tokyo hospital after getting dropped by Timofey Nastyukhin in first round
- But Demetrious Johnson gets the job done with second-round submission win
Eddie Alvarez said he had one thing on his mind when he joined One Championship – to win the lightweight belt. But he suffered a shock defeat at the first hurdle with a first-round TKO defeat by Timofey Nastyukhin.
There were no such problems for Demetrious Johnson, who submitted Yuya Wakamatsu with a second-round guillotine at Ryogoku Sumo Hall to move into the flyweight grand prix semi-finals.
But Alvarez is out at the quarter-final stage of the lightweight grand prix. Russia’s Nastyukhin hurt Alvarez’s left eye early on, before later dropping him against the fence with punches to the head. The referee stopped the fight at 4:05 of the first round, and officials later confirmed he had been taken to hospital and would not be doing any post-fight interviews.
“I feel very good. You know it is my style,” said Nastyukhin, who picked a US$50,000 performance of the night bonus. “I like to finish in the first round by knockout and I did it. I didn’t think too much. I saw he got hurt. I saw the opportunity and I took it.”