‘The Warmaster’ reigns supreme as Josh Barnett submits Andrei Arlovski in battle of former UFC champions

JOSH ‘The Warmaster’ Barnett lived up to his fighting moniker with a submission win after a wild heavyweight war at UFC Fight Night in Hamburg, Germany, on Saturday night.

Barnett defeated fellow former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei ‘Pitbull’ Arlovski in the third round after an action-packed contest that saw both men badly rocked in the fight’s opening exchanges.

Arlovski shaded the opening round, but Barnett’s strength-sapping clinch game started to pay dividends in the second round as he left the Belarusian heavyweight returning to his stool breathing very heavily after a tough five-minute battle.

And in the third Barnett went for the finish, taking Arlovski to the mat and hammering him with ground strikes, before the ‘Pitbull’ gave up his back and was forced to submit by a rear-naked choke.

Former light-heavyweight title challenger Alex Gustafsson ended a two-fight losing streak as he claimed a dominant three-round win over former training partner Jan Blachowicz in the night’s co-main event.

Blachowicz started the fight promisingly, matching Gustafsson strike for strike as the tall Swede looked to claim a quickfire knockout win.

But after realising he was getting more than he bargained for from the powerful Pole, Gustafsson switched tactics and took Blachowicz to the mat.

It proved a fight-winning decision, as the six-foot-five Swede delivered a succession of punishing elbows to Blachowicz as he ran out a dominant 30-27 victor.

American light-heavyweight contender Ryan Bader cemented his place as one of the UFC’s top 205-pounders with a jaw-dropping knockout of Swedish powerhouse Ilir Latifi.

Latifi started well, dropping Bader at the end of the opening round as the rising European star’s confidence at the top level was starting to grow.

But that confidence was shattered in the second round when Bader landed a step-in knee that landed flush on Latifi’s chin, felling him like a huge Swedish pine tree for one of the most spectacular walk-off KOs of 2016.

Also on the main card, German lightweight favourite Nick Hein returned to action with a win as he defeated South Korean Tae Hyun Bang by unanimous decision.

Preliminary card

British debutant Jim Wallhead found himself the victim of a controversial split decision as German Jessin Ayari took the win on two of the three judges’ scorecards after their welterweight bout.

Wallhead pushed the pace for the overwhelming majority of the fight as Ayari spent most of the rounds backpedalling and looking to land on the counter.

It seemed he only had any real sustained success in the final round, and despite Wallhead scoring two knockdowns in the fight, two of the three judges scored the bout in Ayari’s favour, with scores of 28-29, 29-28, 30-27.

The welterweight contest between Peter Sobotta and Nicolas Dalby saw the local favourite deliver a spectacular performance against the former Cage Warriors champion to score a unanimous decision victory.

Sobotta started like a man possessed and sent Dalby crashing to the canvas with a huge uppercut before diving on his downed opponent and firing a succession of big shots in search of the finish. But Dalby is made of tough stuff and managed to survive.

The second round saw more of the same from Sobotta, who dominated once again, without the kicker of a knockdown.

And the Polish-born German, who now says he’s fighting for Jamaica, took the win on the judges’ scorecards after yet another strong round to claim a landslide victory, with scores of 30-26 on all three scorecards.

Women’s bantamweight prospect Ashlee Evans-Smith claimed an impressive TKO finish in her bout with 20-year-old debutant Veronica Macedo.

Macedo was significantly undersized against Evans-Smith, but fought gamely in the opening round.

But the young debutant started to struggle with Evans-Smith’s size in the second round and eventually succumbed in the third as the American rained down a deluge of powerful elbows that forced referee Neil Hall to step in and end the contest.

Former Cage Warriors champion Jack Hermansson made a victorious start to his UFC career with a hard-fought decision win over Brit Scott Askham.

Askham and Hermansson eased their way into the opening round, but found their feet in the second, as both men looked to up the pace.

And Hermansson’s successes in the clinch in particular proved decisive, as he managed to land a succession of clean shots to the Brit in the second and third rounds.

When the judges returned their scores, it was the Sweden-based Norwegian who ran out the winner after a brutal battle, earning scores of 30-27, 30-27, 29-28.