UFC Fight Night 99 results: Kyoji Horiguchi sweeps Ali Bagautinov on scorecards

BELFAST, Northern Ireland – In a fight that was much closer than it looked on the scorecards, Kyoji Horiguchi pulled off a clean sweep of Ali Bagautinov on all three judges’ scorecards.

After some exhaustive battles in the clinch, mixed with wide open striking exchanges, Horiguchi (18-2 MMA, 7-1 UFC) bested Bagautinov (14-5 MMA, 4-3 UFC) to take the unanimous-decision victory by scores of 30-27 across the board.

The flyweight bout was part of the preliminary card of today’s UFC Fight Night 99 event at SSE Arena Belfast in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The entire event streamed on UFC Fight Pass.

While the scores would have you believe it was a dominating performance by Horiguchi, the fight itself was a much tougher affair for him. He spent much of the first round fending off Bagautinov’s takedown attempts or else scrambling back to his feet when he did hit the floor.

Horiguchi’s best moments came when he managed to keep the fight in the center of the cage, as in the second when he caught Bagautinov lunging in and briefly wobbled him with a knee.

The fight seemed close headed into the third, and that’s when Horiguchi’s indefatigable pace really helped him out. After scoring well with punches and knees in the striking exchanges, Horiguchi finished the fight with a key takedown that helped him control Bagautinov from the back in those crucial last moments.

Still, with almost every round close and difficult to score, a win for Horiguchi was by no means guaranteed as the fight went to the scorecards. But all three judges gave Horiguchi every round, leaving Bagautinov to shake his head in dismay as the scores were read aloud.

The win makes it three in a row for Horiguchi, who has not lost since his unsuccessful challenge for the UFC flyweight title in 2015. Bagautinov has now lost three of his last four.

Up-to-the-minute UFC Fight Night 99 results include:

• Kyoji Horiguchi def. Ali Bagautinov via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
• Kevin Lee def. Magomed Mustafaev via technical submission (rear-naked choke) – Round 2, 4:31
• Amanda Cooper def. Anna Elmose via unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
• Justin Ledet def. Mark Godbeer via submission (rear-naked choke) – Round 1, 2:16
• Zak Cummings def. Alexander Yakovlev via submission (armbar) – Round 2, 4:02
• Marion Reneau def. Milana Dudieva via TKO (punches) – Round 3, 3:03
• Brett Johns def. Kwan Ho Kwak via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
• Abdul Razak Alhassan def. Charlie Ward via knockout (punches) – Round 1, 0:53

For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 99, check out the UFC Events section of the site.

(MMAjunkie’s Matt Erickson and Mike Bohn contributed to this report on site in Belfast.)