Yousri Belgaroui TKOs Djorden Santos, Calls for Top 15 Next
Yousri Belgaroui needed 4:25 of the first round to put Djorden Santos away at Noche UFC. Referee Brad Frank waved it off after the Dutch middleweight dropped his opponent and finished with punches in Glendale.
The official call matched the graphic that flashed on the cage. Belgaroui won by TKO at 4:25 of round one and walked out 11-3 overall, 3-0 in the UFC. Santos fell to 11-4 and 1-3 inside the Octagon.
The broadcast listed a six-fight winning streak and a four-fight finish streak for Belgaroui. He had already stopped Azamat Bekoev and Mansur Abdul-Malik in his first two UFC appearances. This one did not last as long.
Daniel Cormier met him in the center of the cage and called it a beautiful performance. “That’s three wins in a row,” Cormier said. “How good does it feel to be building this type of win streak and not only winning fights, but finishing fights?”
Belgaroui did not dress it up. “Yeah, I do what I get paid for, right?” he said. “They line ’em up and knock ’em out. That’s what the Boogeyman stand for.”
The nickname is the one he keeps using. UFC previewed him as middleweight’s new Boogeyman before the card. He stood 6-foot-5 with a 79-inch reach and spent the night punching down at a shorter man who never found a takedown.
The stat sheet was one-sided. Belgaroui landed 46 of 81 significant strikes. Santos landed 16 of 48. There was one knockdown and zero submission attempts. The only wrestling that mattered was Belgaroui walking Santos to the fence and keeping him there until the right hand landed clean.
Santos had replaced Kelvin Gastelum on short notice. He came in 11-3 with a win over Danny Barlow and a recent technical submission loss to Baisangur Susurkaev. He ate a head kick, fired back, then went down. Belgaroui did not let him off the canvas.
Cormier pressed him on the favorite’s role. Belgaroui had said he likes operating as an underdog. On Saturday he was a massive one, listed around -800. “Not only did you fight well, you fought better than your first two performances,” Cormier told him. “How good does it feel to put the game plan that you guys had and use it effectively?”
Belgaroui answered the pressure first. “Yeah, it’s less pressure fighting as an underdog, right? Look at this, more pressure, more to lose. But these are the things you also gotta solve.”
Then he pointed at the ranked names that have not taken the call. “Now I wanna solve a top fifteen guy. Let’s get it. Don’t be scared when we call you. Pick up your phone. Don’t hide, ’cause I’m comin’. That fcking knocked you out, motherf**er.”
The celebration clip showed him circling the cage with a fist in the air while production cameras chased him. The crowd at Desert Diamond Arena had already watched Regina Tarin, Sean King III, and Tommy Gantt win earlier. Belgaroui gave them the first middleweight finish of the night.
He is 34, out of Amsterdam, and trains at Teixeira MMA. Glory kickboxing is still on the résumé. Three UFC knockouts in three fights is the part that now sits in front of matchmakers. A top-15 middleweight is the booking he asked for on live television.
Whether that phone rings is the only unfinished business from a first-round stoppage in Arizona. Belgaroui made the request in the same cage where he just lined another one up and knocked him out.