[Music] [Music] Slava Claus was coming to town on Saturday as lightweight vaslav Bev faced off with James laop as part of the UFC Vegas 96 preliminary card the jovial St Nick nicknamed borchev had danced his way off stage at Friday's weigh-ins and was to get back in the wind column from A Loss to chase Hooper that left him at 1 one1 in his last three fights laop meanwhile was in search of his first UFC win the fight began with borchev immediately going to the leg with kicks veslav was able to land a te to the body of his opponent as well both Fighters threw single shots to start the fight and feeling out each other about a minute in and the two men struck into the clinch borchev landed a solid elbow as the two broke laop was able to land a solid body punch in space moments later borchev answered back with a hard leg kick halfway through the round and borchev surged with a boxing combination that backed his opponent into the fence VAV punctuated the combo with a head kick that partially landed Lop was able to stay calm calm and use his footwork to get himself out of trouble with about a minute in left in the round after exchanging body kicks with his foe Bev countered lawn toop with a huge punch and snapped back the head of his opponent a few moments later James landed an eye pooke on borchev and before the ref was able to physically separate the two James seized the moment and pounced on his Foe and landed a clubbing shot that dropped a protesting borchev a few stern warnings and a little over 2 minutes later and the two were backed action borchev got right back to work Landing solid kicks on all levels with under 10 seconds left in the round Lop landed a thuing shot behind the ear on his opponent which borchev answered with volume but nothing that landed flush to start the second round borchev partially dropped an advancing lawn toop with a jab James was able to quickly return to his feet but ate some shots in the process borchev was really starting to land on his opponent with boxing combinations and SL a couple of punches that came back his way lawn toop was able to continue to Rally back and kept Landing that punch to the body he was also able to use head movement to evade enough shots to keep him in the mix Midway through the round and vlob was able to make lawn toop Miss and counter to the body hurting his opponent James was able to survive but continued to eat body shots from his opponent over the course of the round with seconds left in the round Lop poured on the strikes and turned up the aggressiveness including some clinch work James cut his opponent in The Surge and showed he was still very much in the fight an instant replay between rounds would reveal that the cut on Bev's head was from a clash of heads to begin the final round both Fighters came out very aggressive as they exchanged some thuing body and leg kicks laop continued to come forward and land strikes about a minute into the round a multi-punch combination from James forced his opponent to stumble back momentarily Lop was really starting to work with his jab and kicks nearly halfway into the round and borchev landed an overhand that was surely one of the hardest punches of the fight laop aided and continued to move forward vaslav continued to evade with footwork and both men absolutely peppered each other's legs with a minute left in the round Lop really began to Surge forward with his output borchev was able to answer and with 30 seconds left unsuccessfully shot a takedown lawn toop rejected the shot and the fighters engaged in the clinch both Fighters moved out of the clinch and into striking range and borchev threw an unsuccessful Rolling Thunder to finish off a very exciting fight [Music]