St. Louis fighters, fans shine on UFC Fight Night

Joaquin Buckley called his shot, got his fight and it resulted in not just a win in front of the hometown crowd, but also a record-setting gate for UFC Fight Night on Saturday, May 11, in St. Louis.

15,960 fans entered the Enterprise Center and its $2,470,197 gate represents the highest domestic UFC Fight Night of all time.

“Everybody needs this,” said Charles Johnson, who won his prelim fight against Jake Hadley by unanimous decision. “It’s a rough city but it’s a sports town.”

It’s the type of event that has UFC President Dana White considering a higher frequency of these events taking place across the country rather than mainly at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.

“It’s what I’ve been saying for a long time,” White said. “We got to get out of the Apex and start doing more events in all these different cities, and we’re starting to do it.”

The Enterprise Center crowd was at its loudest when Joaquin Buckley caught Nursulton Ruziboev in the middle of a flying knee kick and slammed him into the mat. Chants of his name filled the arena throughout the final round.

“I just used the energy of the crowd to make sure I kept pushing and keeping on the performance like I was doing in that fight,” Buckley said. “St. Louis got a big win.”

By calling his shot after winning his previous fight, he brought the hype to this moment and delivered on it. Now with four consecutive wins, Buckley is surely in the Top 10 of his weight division.

“That’s the thing to do if you really believe in yourself and especially in your hometown,” White said.

“Most people don’t want to fight in their hometown,” White added. “Buckley called for this, came out, he delivered, and that guy’s gonna be a rock star here now. People who didn’t know who the hell he was yesterday know who he is today.”

Sean Woodson won his fight against UFC veteran Alex Caceres by unanimous decision. Leading up to the fight, Woodson said both he and Caceres had “funky fighting styles” and should lead to an exciting fight.

It turned out Woodson’s funkiness won the day.

“I feel like my faints and awkwardness kind of really messed with him,” Woodson said. “He’s probably used to only being the weird awkward guy in there and the other guy being more technical and by the book. So him having a guy across from him doing some of the stuff that he does, the weird things and being funky and moving, I think that really affected him.”

Woodson started his career in St. Louis fighting in the Shamrock FC events before making it to ”Dana White’s Contender Series” on July 23, 2019. White sees Woodson as a local example of how his show works as a path from the local promotions — such as Shamrock FC in St. Louis and Cage of Honor in Cape Girardeau — to the UFC.

“These guys come in and have one chance to show me who they are and what they got,” White said. “It’s what makes the Contender Series literally the best show on TV as far as combat sports goes.

“These local promotions is where we get all the talent,” he said. “They’re key to the growth of the sport.”

The UFC strategically placed “The Pride of St. Louis” as the second fight in the prelims to get the crowd into the arena from the start.

“St. Louis showed up,” Johnson said. “It’s the second fight and the place was packed already.”

Johnson exercised patience in the first round, defending himself from Hadley’s strikes, and saw his moment to strike in the second round.

“He was looking at around the whole time, which made him very unsuccessful on his strikes,” Johnson said. “You just got to be mindful, work your way around that corner and touch him and that's what I did.”

A strike to the face late in the second round knocked Hadley to the floor and Johnson followed it up with a series of kicks to the rear end to end the round with the momentum in his favor.

“By the skin of my teeth,” Johnson said. “I made it closer than it needed to be, to be honest, but it was the nature of the fight.”

Derrek Lewis delivered in the main event with his UFC record 15th career knockout over Rodrigo Nascimento.

“I couldn’t let no taxi cab driver from Brazil beat me,” Lewis said after the fight. “This my first time ever hearing of that guy.”