With the topic of illegal eye pokes fresh on the mind of most in mixed martial arts following last weekend’s aborted heavyweight title bout between Tom Aspinall and Ciryl Gane, Saturday’s co-main event at UFC Fight Night in Las Vegas couldn’t have played out in a more bizarre and unprecedented manner.
Heavyweight contender Waldo Cortes-Acosta went from nearly losing his bout against Ante Delija by first-round TKO inside the UFC Apex despite absorbing a poke to the eye, to having the fight restarted after referee Mark Smith consulted instant replay. Merely seconds later, after uncorking a monstrous, looping right hand that caught Delija flush and floored him, Cortes-Acosta was celebrating an unlikely knockout victory of his own.
Cortes-Acosta (15-2) improved to 6-1 over his last seven fights by successfully rebounding from a decision loss to Sergei Pavlovich in August. But the 34-year-old native of the Dominican Republic only pulled off the dramatic stoppage by choosing to keep fighting despite an errant left hand from Delija that scraped his left eye in a similar manner to what Gane did to Aspinall at UFC 321, which caused the fight to be ruled a no contest late in Round 1.
“I feel the finger going inside my eye. The referee said to stop it. I decided to continue because I felt that I could continue,” Cortes-Acosta said. “My eyes were like 20% vision but I said I don’t give a f—.”
The irony of the situation is that Delija (26-7) is a teammate of Aspinall and criticized Gane this week at media day by saying, “I had 33 fights and never poked someone in the eye. And I do believe the punishment for that should be severe.”
Delija’s illegal poke was initially not seen by Smith. Cortes-Acosta covered up and absorbed a series of hard strikes from the knockout puncher that forced Smith to jump in and seemingly wave off the fight. Seconds later, everyone from cageside doctors to the cutmen and coaches from both teams entered the Octagon.
But after instant replay was consulted following a long break, the fight was restarted. The dramatic knockout win from Cortes-Acosta came just moments later at 3:59 of the round after he dropped Delija with a single punch and attempted to follow up with ground strikes until Smith leaped in to stop the bout.
“Yeah, I’m mad. I’m Dominican. This is in my blood, from birth,” Cortes-Acosta said. “This is what happens. I come in like that every f—ing time and anyone that doesn’t come in f—ing shape, I f— him up like that.”
Delija, a 35-year-old from Croatia, is a former PFL tournament champion who made an explosive UFC debut in September when he knocked out Marcin Tybura just over two minutes into the fight. But it was Cortes-Acosta who now moves forward in a noticeably shallow division.
“I want to tell you something, Aspinall, you see that fight, no? I’m going for you,” Cortes-Acosta said. “Be ready, OK? Be ready.
“It’s exciting for me. For my last fight, I pressured too much. That Russian guy [Pavlovich] got my f—ing victory and took my f—ing five straight [win streak]. I want to come back and beat the champ of the world and f— him up, too.”
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