Flyweight Manel Kape continues successful run at UFC Fight Night

Flyweight Manel Kape stopped Kyoji Horiguchi in the third round for his fourth straight victory on Saturday night in the UFC Fight Night main event in Las Vegas.

Kape's TKO at 2:42 in the third of five scheduled rounds marked a transition period in a division whose champion, Joshua Van, successfully defended his title for the first time last month at UFC 328.

Kape (23-7 MMA, 8-3 UFC), a native of Angola fighting out of Portugal, exacted revenge against Japan's Horiguchi (36-6, 1 NC MMA) from their 2017 bout in RIZIN, when Kape suffered one of only two submission losses in his career.

Kape paid respects to Horiguchi, recognizing that without him, his path to a potential title shot would look a little different, as he faced adversity in both fights.

Kape did make one thing clear, though.

"I knew he was going to touch me at some point," Kape said after the fight about Horiguchi. "Because I felt his hand (speed) before. But, if I touch you one time -- believe me -- you're gonna be dead."

Kape, who has won seven of his last eight bouts, said he doesn't know if he'll get a title shot against Van immediately but was gracious toward UFC brass, including CEO Dana White.

The co-main event featured a pair of surging light heavyweights in New Zealand's Navajo Stirling and Ion Cutelaba of Moldova.

After surviving five takedowns and a few potentially fight-ending submission sequences, including a standing guillotine, Stirling railed to secure a brutal TKO against Cutelaba at 3:23 of Round 2.

Since making his promotional debut in 2024, Stirling (10-0 MMA) is 5-0 in the UFC with back-to-back finishes and 10 straight victories.

Cutelaba (20-12-1), on the contrary, is 3-3 in his last six UFC fights, having been a fringe top-15 contender in the division and remaining part of the promotion since 2016.

The finishes kept coming in a trio of featherweight bouts, as Christian Rodriguez's first-round head-kick marked the beginning of the end for Hyder Amil of the Philippines.

At 3:43 of the round, Rodriguez (13-4) successfully found an opening to secure a guillotine choke following the kick, after much of the fight was spent on the feet. The American has won four of his last seven, while Amil (11-3) fell to 3-3 in the promotion after three straight losses.

Featherweight Murtazali Magomedov added his name to the UFC history books with a modified twister submission 1:17 into the opening round against the usually durable Melsik Baghdasaryan.

Since the UFC's inception in November 1993, only three other fighters have successfully executed the combined version of a neck crank and a spinal lock: Chan Sung Jung (2011), Bryce Mitchell (2019) and Da'Mon Blackshear (2023).

Magomedov (11-0 MMA) of Kyrgyzstan was making his UFC debut, while Armenia's Baghdasaryan (8-4 MMA) has dropped two in a row and three of his last four.

The UFC Vegas 119 main card kicked off with Brazilian featherweight Vinicius Oliveira securing a second-round TKO (4:56) against Andre Fili of the United States to secure his fifth win in his last six outings.

Oliveira (24-4 MMA) now has two UFC wins by KO/TKO, marking the 19th finish of his career. Meanwhile, Fili (25-14, 1 NC MMA) fell to .500 in the UFC (13-13) since 2013.

The UFC caps off June with a trip to Baku, Azerbaijan, next Saturday for the second straight year.

--Field Level Media