UFC on ESPN+ 26 rookie report: Grading the lone newcomer in Auckland

Fighters from around the globe dream of the day they’ll step into the UFC octagon for the first time. For one athlete, Saturday’s UFC on ESPN+ 26 event marked that special moment in their career.

Check out this week’s rookie report to see what kind of first impression he made on the sport’s biggest stage from Spark Arena in Auckland, New Zealand.

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Joshua Culibao

Division: Lightweight
Result: Jalin Turner def. Josh Culibao via TKO (ground-and-pound) – Round 2, 3:01
Record: (8-1 MMA, 0-1 UFC)
Grade: D-

Sydney native Culibao was all smiles ahead of his first UFC appearance, and he grinned his way to the octagon as he soaked up the occasion of his octagon debut.

But, despite his sunny outlook, things didn’t go “Kuya’s” way on fight night as he was finished in the second round by Jalin Turner in Auckland.

Fighting a weight class above his usual featherweight division, Culibao was physically outmatched by the rangy Turner (9-5 MMA, 2-2 UFC), who held significant height, reach and weight advantages over the 25-year-old. Those physical discrepancies played out throughout the matchup, as Turner used his advantages to good effect to score the stoppage win.

Culibao looked loose early on as he circled the cage and moved in and out to score with strikes from close range. But Turner looked like a man used to operating a weight class higher than Culibao as he took the debutant to the mat with relative ease before stepping back up to allow the fight to return to the feet. Culibao was then taken down again by Turner, and had to stay composed to survive a tight-looking mounted guillotine choke as he made it to the stool at the end of the round.

Culibao struggled to get inside the perimeter of Turner’s striking range in Round 2 as “The Tarantula” kept the debutant on the end of his strikes. Then, just over a minute into the round, disaster struck for Culibao as he appeared to sustain a twisted ankle while circling on the outer reaches of the octagon. Turner saw his moment and pounced, as he took Culibao down, established top position and peppered the Aussie with strikes to score the TKO victory.

Fighting on less than three weeks’ notice at a weight class higher than usual, against a much bigger, rangier athlete, Culibao had an uphill battle from the start. Suffering an unfortunate mid-fight injury only made things go from bad to worse as he lost a one-sided fight by second-round TKO.

It’s impossible to give Culibao a positive grade on the strength of his debut showing, but it’s also unfair to judge him solely on the basis of that matchup, considering all the disadvantages he faced going in.

Hopefully, he’ll get another shot, this time at his usual weight class and with a full fight camp under his belt, and he can do himself justice in a more evenly-matched contest.