UFC Fight Night 56 results: Diego Rivas outgrapples Rodolfo Rubio for decision win

UBERLANDIA, Brazil – After a grappling-heavy and at times sloppy affair, Diego Rivas (6-0 MMA, 1-0 UFC) emerged with the unanimous decision victory (30-27, 30-27, 30-27) over Rodolfo Rubio (12-7 MMA, 0-1 UFC).

The featherweight bout closed out the preliminary card of today’s UFC Fight Night 56 event at Ginasio Municipal Tancredo Neves in Uberlandia, Minas Gerais, Brazil. It aired on FOX Sports 2 ahead of a main card on FOX Sports 1.

You can’t exactly call this one a thriller. Instead it was two fighters of varying levels of experience, who nonetheless both seemed to be works in progress. While there were glimpses of meaningful action here and there, they were few and far between. At several points Rubio seemed primed to capitalize on Rivas’ mistakes, passing the guard after failed submission attempts and taking his back multiple times.

And yet, Rubio was unable to make much of any of those opportunities, repeatedly allowing Rivas to spin into him and go to work with ground-and-pound from the top. Late in the fight, where you might expect to see a sense of urgency from Rubio, we instead saw more of the same, as one opportunity after another slipped through his fingers and Rivas did just enough to win each round on all three judges’ scorecards.

With the win, Rivas maintains his perfect professional record. Rubio has now lost two in a row.

Up-to-the-minute UFC Fight Night 56 results include:

For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 56, check out the UFC Events section of the site.

(MMAjunkie’s John Morgan contributed to this report on site in Rio.)