“Tachi Palace 9: Contenders” took place Saturday night, May 6, at Tachi Palace Hotel and Casino in Lemoore, Calif. The event saw a host of UFC veterans and rising stars do what they do best — entertain the fans by beating the holy hell out of each other.
The main event saw world top-ranked flyweight Ian “Uncle Creepy” McCall (10-2) take on Nashville’s Dustin Ortiz (7-1).
Coming into the fight Ortiz had finished every opponent he had faced and had proven he was one of the top 125-pounders in the Southeast, but McCall was a serious step-up in competition to see exactly where Ortiz stood against the best in the world.
McCall is a nine-year veteran and a world-class level fighter whose only two losses have come at bantamweight, both in the WEC, with his most recent loss coming against current UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz (17-1) via unanimous decision.
For someone who only began their pro career last year, Ortiz should be proud of himself. He hung in there with the best of the best, took everything McCall had and walked away relatively unscathed. More importantly, he now knows what it is like to go 15 minutes with someone of McCall’s level and can learn from it and improve.
Sherdog currently has McCall as the number three ranked flyweight and has Japan’s Mamoru Yamaguchi (26-5-3) at number two. Yamaguchi also fought on the Tachi Palace 9 card Saturday, picking up a second round knockout of Kevin Dunsmoor (10-4). Hopefully for their next fights, Tachi Palace can put together McCall vs. Yamaguchi.
Watch the rest of the main card fights here: Tachi Palace Fights 9: Contenders – fight videos.
[…] Here is his last fight against a very game Dustin Ortiz, where Ian dominated […]