Thales Leites and Tim Boetsch engaged in a wonderful firefight, with Leites surviving some heavy leather before snaking in a fight-ending arm-triangle choke at 3:45 of the second frame.
For a round and a half, both men played a thrilling game of live action Rock 'em Sock 'em robots, with both giving as good as they got.
Midway through the middle stanza, "The Barbarian" cracked Leites with a brutal uppercut, forcing the Brazilian to seek a takedown. Once on the mat, Leites took over, failing on his first attempt at an arm-triangle, before finally choking Boetsch into unconsciousness on his second try.
Leites, who now finds himself in the thick of things at 185 pounds, did not escape unscathed.
My God. Thales Leites' face looks like that. And he WON. #UFC183 @ufc pic.twitter.com/7ir01mTkzC
— Tyler McMurchy (@TylerMcMurchy) February 1, 2015
Yikes.