Rodrigo Sezinando has his first UFC win, and Theodor Berggren has a lip that needs serious attention. The Brazilian welterweight opened a deep cut with an elbow on the UFC Vegas 123 prelims Saturday night at the Meta Apex in Las Vegas. The cageside doctor stopped the fight before Round 3 could start, and the official result is a TKO (doctor’s stoppage) at 5:00 of Round 2.
MMA Fighting’s account called the cut gnarly and the elbow nasty on X. That’s fair. MMA Junkie posted the finish under the line “Nasty Halloween-esque cut ends the fight,” which fits, given the card fell on Oct. 31. Some cuts drip and some cuts gush, and from the clips circulating after the bout this was the second kind.
How it got there
The UFC’s own account promoted the bout as “Wild welterweight action” while it was underway, and Sezinando gave them material before the elbow ever landed. Midway through, the promotion’s X feed posted a clip of him cracking Berggren with a big spinning backfist, the kind of shot that wakes up a half-full Apex room on a prelim slot. Then came the elbow, and the second round ended with the doctor deciding Berggren wasn’t fit to continue.
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The UFC described the result as “As convincing as it gets” on X shortly after the decision was announced. Promotional hype, sure, but the numbers on the scorecard of damage were all going one direction.
The records
Sherdog had Sezinando moving to 9-2 overall and 1-1 inside the UFC, so this one wiped the zero off the win column of his promotional record. MMA Fighting’s staff predictions picked him to beat Berggren, so the result lines up with how the experts saw it going.
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For Berggren, the night is rough. He falls to 8-5 overall and 0-2 in the UFC, according to Sherdog. Two losses to start a UFC run is a dangerous place for any fighter, and losing on a cut, with no tap and no knockout, is its own kind of frustrating because the fight ends without the feeling of being beaten.
The bout streamed on Paramount+ as part of a seven-fight early prelim card that started at 5 p.m. ET. The main event pits Renato Moicano against Tom Nolan at lightweight. No next opponent has been announced for Sezinando.
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Quick take
I usually have a lot to say about stoppage timing, and here I’ve got nothing to complain about, which is the best compliment I can give a doctor. The call came in the gap between rounds, with the fighter sitting on a stool, and nobody’s arguing a referee jumped in too soon or stood around too long. Lip cuts are ugly. Every strike, every clinch, every bit of pressure reopens them and pours blood into the mouth, and three more minutes of that helps nobody. Sezinando earned this with a spinning backfist and an elbow that did exactly what elbows are designed to do. He’s 1-1 in the UFC now, and he got his first promotional win with the kind of sharp, violent finish that gets a fighter a phone call from matchmakers quickly. I want to see him back on a card before spring.
