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Brett Okamoto, ESPN Staff Writer
Marcin Tybura picked up one of the fastest wins of his UFC career on Saturday as he submitted Tai Tuivasa in the first round of their heavyweight main event.
Tybura (25-8) finished Tuivasa (15-7) with a rear-naked choke at the 4:08 mark. Tybura’s quickest UFC finish came at the 4:06 mark of a fight against Walt Harris in 2021. This one would have ended sooner, but Tuivasa refused to tap and eventually went unconscious. The heavyweight bout headlined UFC Fight Night inside the Apex in Las Vegas.
“I was choking him for so long,” Tybura said. “I could hear he was having a hard time but still not giving up. I was thinking, ‘Man, what is he made of?'”
Tuivasa, of Australia, went into Saturday’s contest in desperate need of a victory. The 31-year-old fan favorite has been in a bit of a freefall the during past two years. He has now lost four in a row inside the Octagon and has been finished in each loss.
He looked good in the opening minute, working on Tybura’s lead leg with low kicks. He cut Tybura with a nice elbow out of the Thai clinch but gave up a takedown along the fence less than halfway through the round. Once Tybura had Tuivasa down, he easily took his back and hammered him with shots to the side of the head. Eventually, the shots gave way to the rear-naked choke, resulting in Tybura’s first win by submission since 2014.
Tybura, of Poland, has won three of his past four, with the only loss coming to current interim champion Tom Aspinall. He has the fifth-most wins among active UFC heavyweights with 12.
Tuivasa, who was ranked No. 9 in the division prior to this fight, has not won since a second-round knockout of Derrick Lewis in February 2022.