Gilbert Yvel: Finishes RizzoRizzo Floored Brutally by Yvel Within First Half of First Round

Gilbert Yvel (35-12) fought for only his second time in the United States on Saturday at Ultimate Chaos. There, he met Pedro "The Rock" Rizzo (16-9), who is now 35 years old, and has been fighting professionally in MMA for a little more than the last twelve and a half years of his life.

Yvel himself is only 32, yet Yvel has literally twice the number of wins on his records that Pedro has on his own... and that's saying a lot. Yvel also has nearly twice the number of fights Pedro has combined, in about the same amount of time: Pedro took his first professional fight in Holland in October of 1996, while Yvel took his first professional fight in Holland in February of 1997.

Pedro opened their melee with an early takedown that caught the Dutch kickboxer almost too easily, after which Rizzo attempted to strike from a semi-advantageous position, only to have his efforts effectively thwarted by the defending Yvel.

The fight soon returned to a standing position, where Yvel launched a huge left high kick that caught the side of Rizzo's head in glancing fashion, which sent Rizzo into panic mode, and driving forward for a takedown.

Rizzo's takedown was ineffective, as his face collided with Yvel's knee consequentially as he changed levels. As Rizzo turned over to perhaps recover and pull guard following the takedown attempt, Yvel began raining down thunderous right hands, each of which caught Rizzo flush in the face. Five shots connected, the last two of which cleanly plowed into Rizzo's unconscious head. The ref came driving in to stop the fight as the third was about to connect.

With less than half of the round's overall time elapsed, Gilbert Yvel earns his first win in the United States with a dominating victory over the veteran Rizzo.

Meanwhile, Rizzo is 2-4 in his last 6 fights, and has been consistently outmatched over the last eight years of his career, unable to put together anything more than a streak of two wins in almost a decade of competition.

Starting his career 9-0, Rizzo's posted an overall losing record since June of 2009, when he dropped a decision loss to Kevin Randleman. 8-9 since, Rizzo's seen such highs as KO wins over Jeff Monson and Andrei Arlovski, while showing glaring inconsistency by way of losses to Vladimir Matyushenko and Roman Zentsov.

What's next for Yvel...

Gilbert Yvel is next scheduled to fight Paul Buentello at Affliction: Trilogy on August 1st. Buentello is 12-2 in his last 14 fights, posting impressive wins over veteran fighters as well as up-and-coming talent in his run over the last 5 years. Buentello's kill-chart includes such veteran names as Gary Goodridge, Tank Abbott, Bobby Hoffman, Glibert Aldana, and Ruben "Warpath" Villareal, while also posting wins over newcomers Justin Eilers, Carter Williams, and Kiril Sidelnikov.

Both Rizzo and Yvel has previously held losses to Roman Zentsov, highly-touted training partner of Fedor Emelianenko, who bears a record of 17-13. Yvel showed that whether or not that held any relevance past the point of where both fighters were at a previous point in their careers, Yvel demonstrated superiority in his win over Rizzo, outstriking him by way of strength more than technique.

Though his most recent loss to Josh Barnett rings in the minds of rans stateside, it came due to strikes from an advantageous position after three rounds of Yvel demonstrating that he could hang with a ground-proficient adversary, a demon he'd long worked to exorcise over the course of a career that at one point had his renowned ground acumen nearly non-existent.

Having outworked Rizzo effectively, he moves on to take on Buentello, who has outclassed hyped competition in high-profile match-ups on a regular basis as of late.