UFC Fight Night 101 results: Ben Nguyen cruises past Geane Herrera for easy unanimous decision

MELBOURNE, Australia – Geane Herrera sprinted across the cage to start his bout with Ben Nguyen, delivering a flying side kick to the body that put Nguyen down.

But as exciting as that early display by Herrera (9-3 MMA, 1-3 UFC) was, it was the calm and steady work from Nguyen (15-6 MMA, 3-1 UFC) that carried the day in the end, earning him a unanimous decision victory with scores of 30-27, 30-26, and 30-27.

The flyweight bout was part of the preliminary card of today’s UFC Fight Night 101 event at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It aired on FS1 following additional prelims on UFC Fight Pass and ahead of a main card on FS1.

Nguyen’s success came almost entirely on the feet, as he used an ever-shifting and yet startlingly accurate striking attack to pick Herrera apart over the course of three rounds. He was the busier fighter throughout the night, and the more unpredictable one, changing stances and reeling off one stinging combination after another.

But while Herrera found himself wobbled and even occasionally floored by Nguyen’s punches, he never let himself drift close to a finish. No matter what Nguyen pasted him with, and even with blood leaking from his increasingly battered cheek, he kept coming forward and absorbing the blows in an effort to answer back with a few of his own.

The problem for Herrera was that he never managed the volume of strikes, or the efficiency, that Nguyen maintained throughout the fight. The strikes he did land seemed powerful and always threatening, even as Nguyen did his best to shake them off, but they were too few and far between for Herrera, who wound up a victim to Nguyen’s smooth yet brisk pace in the end.

After three rounds of one-sided action, all three judges had the fight as a clean sweep for Nguyen.

The victory for Nguyen is his first since his lone UFC loss, a TKO at the hands of Louis Smolka in July. Herrera has now lost two straight, and three of his last four.

Up-to-the-minute UFC Fight Night 101 results include:

For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 101, check out the UFC Events section of the site.

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