Joshua Van Hands Rei Tsuruya His First Career Loss with Dominant Performance- UFC 313 Highlights
Joshua Van handed newcomer Rei Tsuruya his first career loss at UFC 313.
Van significantly outstruck Tsuruya in the opening round, but it was the two takedowns and nearly two minutes of control time that somewhat closed the gap between the two in the first.
Just past the one-minute mark of the second round, Tsuruya secured a slick takedown and got Van in a side headlock. Unfortunately, Tsuruya wasn’t able to do much with the position and Van fought his way back up a minute later. Tsuruya continued to try and take things to the mat, much to the chagrin of the live crowd, but Van did a good job of fending off each attempt.
Van landed a nice knee up the middle with 30 seconds to go. That prompted Tsuruya to respond with a solid spinning back fist that got a reaction out of the crowd.
Van started to take over the third round and landed a nasty kick up the middle that had Tsuruya clutching his cup. After a brief stoppage to take a look at the replay, it was clear that the kick landed clean and the fight was immediately restarted.
Van took one more shot at getting a late stoppage, but he was unable to put away Tsuruya, taking us to the scorecards in the evening’s featured prelim.
Official Result: Joshua Van def. Rei Tsuruya via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
