Austin Vanderford, Ranked #2 suffers an astonishing TKO loss to unranked, short-notice replacement Aaron Jeffrey at Bellator 284
Follow Us
(Left) Vandeford witrh his wife Vanzat, (right) Vandefrord gets KOed by Jeffery
Austin Vanderford is most well known for being Paige Vanzant’s husband, along with having a substantial but questionable MMA career. All of this changed after Bellator 284 when he was finished by Aaron Jeffreys, an unranked late replacement. Oh and did we forget to mention that Vanderford is the #2 ranked contender in the organization?
Yes, a short-notice, unranked fighter just came in and knocked out the #2 ranked middleweight in Bellator and it barely took him one full round.
Vanderford was originally scheduled to face Anthony Adams, a 9-2 pro fighter, who unfortunately had to pull out of the fight 2 weeks out. Canadian fighter, Aaron Jeffrey was booked as a late short notice replacement.
Walking in to the fight Vanderford was expected to be victorious as this was seen as just a tune-up fight. That was mostly because he was just coming off his first professional loss against Gegard Mousasi when he faced the dutchman for the title and was finished in the first round itself.
Austin Vanderford gets brutalized by unranked opponent Aaron Jeffery at Bellator 284
The bout started with both men trading shots at range but Jeffrey surprisingly found the mark more often than Austin. In fact, Jeffrey was able to score a knockdown, thanks to a short right, that led to a scramble before getting back to their feet.
Following this sequence, Austin was promptly put on his back foot with Aaron leading in using thunderous straight rights, followed by a stance switch that led to a strong jab to follow. Shortly after, at the 1:30 mark of the first round, Aaron landed a similar short right that led to the first knockdown, this time following it up with hammer punches that forced the ref to step in.
With his victory, Jeffrey is sure to debut high on the Bellator middleweight contenders list if he were to be signed to the organization. This elevates Jeffrey’s record to 13-3 with the 30-year-old, fighting out of the Niagara Top Team earning his biggest victory to date. Apart from this he has also fought previously on the DWCS and has a victory over TUF semi-finalist, Andre Petroski.
It is not usual in MMA that an unranked fighter outside the organization walks in at short notice and demolishes a contender in a brutal fashion but that’s what Jeffrey did regardless.
A somewhat similar event occurred when current interim flyweight champion, Brandon Moreno made his UFC debut against then #9 ranked Luis Smolka and finished him in the first round.
Also Read: Usman Nurmagomedov will challenge Patricky Pitbull for the Bellator Lightweight Title at Bellator
Stay Updated!
Jerin Mathew
(713 Articles Published)