Houston Alexander survived a brutal late charge from Jeremy Smith to stay unbeaten in BKFC.

51-year-old Houston Alexander got off to a hot start but had to survive a furious, brutal late charge from Jeremy Smith to win tonight’s BKFC 43 main event from Omaha, Neb.

Hometown favorite Alexander goes to 4-0 in BKFC with the win, while Smith falls to 3-2.

Alexander sliced and diced the face and lip of Smith in the first couple of rounds, to the point that the doctor took a close look there, and also seemed like he was threatening to stop it after the third, with Smith given another round to try and come back.

This was Smith after he got cleaned up after two rounds:

Smith did come back, rocking Alexander with a right hand to the head late in the fourth round, and then absolutely pummeling the veteran’s body with right hands in the clinch. A gassing and hurt Alexander held on there, but when round five was set to begin, his corner instructed him to move and stay clear of Smith.

He couldn’t, though, as the legs just weren’t there, and down the stretch, we saw Smith get inside and brutalize the body again. Overall, Smith landed 105 shots to the body in this fight, and it’s an absolute marvel that Alexander stayed up through the end of this, but he did.

Judges came back with two cards of 48-46 and one of 48-47, all for Alexander. Smith never did go down, but the first round could definitely have been scored a 10-8.

Smith said he hurt his shoulder in the first round, and the fighters shared a tremendous amount of respect.

“He’s exactly what we thought,” Alexander said. “The man’s a warrior, he’s an athlete. Anybody that steps into this ring deserves to be here, so much respect.”

“It was fine, I carried on and I live to fight another day,” Smith said of the injury. “Huge respect for this man right here. Anybody 51 years old should fuckin’ look up to this man. You’re never too old to fuckin’ do it. I’m 38 and people are telling me I’m too fuckin’ old, then you look at this guy, bloody 51, 4-0, so this guy’s a fuckin’ legend. His MMA career, all of it, a fuckin’ legend.”

Alexander said he does plan to keep going.

Undercard results and highlights

• Dakota Cochrane KO-1 Noah Cutter: A vicious, 56-second knockout. I’m not meaning to say anything bad about Cutter (3-6), a professionally tough dude, but the KO shot here just turtled him, he was hurt bad. It sounded and looked like his orbital might have been smashed on the one shot.
• Jimmie Rivera UD-5 Bekhzod Usmonov: Good fight, a second BKFC bout for former UFC vet Jimmie Rivera, who goes to 1-0-1 with the win on unanimous scores of 48-47. It was the first BKFC fight for Usmonov, who has a load of experience across various combat sports, and looked like a promising potential fighter in BKFC, too. Chris Lytle said he was surprised the scores were this close; I think I’d say I was surprised they were all that close, but 48-47 doesn’t seem wild to me, it was a good, tactical fight between two guys who know how to fight.
• Sean Wilson UD-5 Brandon Meyer: Pretty dominant performance here from Wilson (3-1), who was just in control the whole fight, got a first round knockdown, and won on scores of 50-44 from all three judges, as the scores should have been. Meyer falls to 1-1 in BKFC.
• Alonzo Martinez TKO-4 Jeremy Sauceda: Sauceda’s corner pulled him out here, feeling he just didn’t have a path to victory, and dropping his BKFC record to 1-1, while Martinez improves to 3-0.
• Carlos Trinidad-Snake UD-5 Elvin Brito: Scores were 48-46, 48-46, 49-45. Tough fight to call but Trinidad-Snake (4-0) got a first round knockdown and the judges just didn’t see Brito (5-4) get back in it quite enough, but the veteran gave it a good go. Cagey sort of fight, not a lot of huge fireworks, but not dull by any means.
• Ryan Braun KO-1 Andrew Potter: Really, Potter (0-1) was knocked out in seven seconds, but with the 10-count, it’s officially 17 seconds. Braun (2-0) just rushed him and knocked him out. That’s it. That’s all. Potter said he wanted to be in the pocket, and, well, the fight happened in the pocket. Braun charged forward, landed two hard rights, and that was it.

• Jade Masson-Wong UD-5 Taylor Starling: Scores were 48-46, 48-46, and 50-44, with Masson-Wong (2-1) getting a big knockdown late in round three that knocked Starling (3-2) pretty loopy, but to Starling’s credit, she saw out the rest of the fight and had her moments. Starling seemed a bit too tentative overall here, though if she had concerns about Masson-Wong’s one-shot power, clearly they were valid. Starling’s not the same sort of fighter she was when she had the otherworldly war with Charisa Singala a couple years ago, has tried to get more fundamentally and technically sound, but it didn’t work out in this one.

• Jeff Souder UD-5 Idrees Wasi: Good fight, not big drama and Souder kinda dominated overall, but Wasi showed a lot of heart and Souder never threw caution to the wind entirely or tried to just walk through Wasi (1-2), who was still throwing some dangerous counters out there. That he got through a couple of knockdowns. Souder looks like someone who can keep getting better; he’s in his mid-30s but there’s time and a window.

Author: Staff

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