UFC St. Louis results: Waldo Cortes-Acosta ends hype around Robelis Despaigne with lopsided thumping

The undefeated run of highly touted prospect Robelis Despaigne ended with a thud at UFC St. Louis after he was thoroughly dominated by Waldo Cortes-Acosta to kick off the main card on Saturday.

A trio of takedowns from Cortes-Acosta was ultimately all he needed to thwart the stunning knockout power displayed by Despaigne in his past fights, which included his octagon debut. This time around, Despaigne got stuck on the canvas with Cortes-Acosta on top of him, round after round and he showed no signs that he knew how to escape.

Despite the dominant position throughout the fight, Cortes-Acosta wasn’t able to get the finish but he still clearly earned the victory. The judges scored the fight 30-27, 30-27 and 30-26 with Cortes-Acosta getting the nod by unanimous decision.

As expected, Despaigne came out guns blazing, throwing wild strikes as he stalked Cortes-Acosta across the cage in signature fashion. To counter, Cortes-Acosta snatched a takedown, putting the gigantic Cuban on his back playing defense without much effort to get up again.

Cortes-Acosta nearly locked on a rare Americana but Despaigne eventually slipped free from the submission to survive to the horn to mark the end of the first round.

On the restart, Despaigne was far more reserved with his strikes, although still looking to land a haymaker with Cortes-Acosta inviting him to come after him. As they traded bombs, Cortes-Acosta actually connected with a nasty uppercut before scoring another takedown and immediately moving into the mount.

From there, Cortes-Acosta started delivering some heavy ground and pound but he preferred maintaining position than risking too much to potentially allow Despaigne to escape.

With five minutes remaining, Despaigne was pretty clearly running on fumes but Cortes-Acosta wasn’t overly aggressive looking for the finish. Once Cortes-Acosta managed another takedown, the writing was on the wall that the fight was pretty much already over.

Cortes-Acosta did get a little more aggressive on top this time looking to hammer his way to a finish but Despaigne managed to survive to the final horn.

After a perfect 5-0 record to start his career with only one opponent making it past the 20 second mark in the first round, Despaigne realized rather quickly at UFC St. Louis that he still has a lot to learn. As for Cortes-Acosta, he picks up his third win in a row and moves to 5-1 overall in the UFC.