Strickland pounds Japanese, retains King of Cage crown

MANILA, Philippines - Sean Strickland dominated Yusuke Sakashita to fashion out a unanimous decision victory and retain his world middleweight crown in the King of the Cage (KOTC) Championship before a big crowd at the MOA Arena in Pasay City recently.

The Strickland-Sakashita duel highlighted the explosive 11-bout card in the event which featured foreign and Filipino mixed martial arts stars, backed by Booster-C Energy Shot and graced by former former UFC light heavyweight champion Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and UFC mixed martial arts referee and former fighter Herb Dean.

In other results, Rabin Catalan pulled off a unanimous decision win over Genil Francisco, Dean Bermudez beat Rex Tanduyan via submission in two rounds and Mike Bunag also scored a unanimous decision victory over JM Figueras.

Ralf Francisco came away with an impressive TKO win over Recardo Dacuyan, who failed to answer the bell in the second round, Winnie Paderna also scored a TKO victory over Gregory Valerio in the second round while Carlos Tiongson knocked out Fadi Alhamoui in 1:06 of the first round.

Tata Galindez and Uno Legaspi carved out a pair of split decision wins over Neil Cartajena and Reign Soto, respectively, Janito Bayot won via unanimous decision over Francie Curilan, Jerry Torico took out Patrick Dos Santos via Tap-out (strikes) in 2:59 of the second round and Joe Condon blasted Kaleo Kwan for a unanimous decision win.