Nigerian mixed martial artist, Sodiq Yusuff has made a stunning return to the octagon with a quick-fire submission of Don Shainis at the UFC fight night in Las Vegas, Nevada, IgbereTV reports
The Lagos-born fighter was originally supposed to face former contender Giga Chikadze in the co-main event of UFC fight night 210 on September 17th before Chikadze withdrew for undisclosed reasons.
Yusuff was the big favourite on the entire UFC Vegas 61 fight card, and he showed why by taking just 30 seconds into the opening round to submit his opponent via a guillotine choke.
Both fighters clinched up at the start of the fight, with Yusuff burying multiple knees into the midsection of his short-notice replacement opponent and when Shainis changed levels, Yusuff swiftly locked up a front-naked choke to secure the tap.
“I was expecting a much higher-ranked fight,” Yusuf said afterwards. “I’ve had a lot of pauses in my career that was out of my hand, high risk, low reward, but fighter’s fight. I knew I was going to be able to find shots coming up the middle but don’t sleep on my jiu-jitsu.”
It is the second fastest submission in featherweight history behind Chas Skelly with his 19-second submission of Maximo Blanco.
Following his 6th win in the UFC, Yusuff called out ‘the Korean zombie’ “Chan Sung Jung” for a bout in January.
“I would love to meet up with ‘the Korean zombie’,” Yusuff shouted. “Korean zombie we could do this in January, it would be awesome.”
Yusuff now has a 13-2 mixed martial arts record, including 6 wins and a loss (vs Arnold Allen on April 10th, 2021) in the ultimate fighting championship.
Prior to his latest win, the 29-year-old who is ranked 12th in the UFC featherweight division last competed in March when he returned to winning ways with a unanimous decision victory over Alex Caceres
