Edmonton's Tanner Boser bulldozes his way to epic UFC Fight Night triumph

It couldn’t have turned out any more perfectly if Tanner Boser had written the script himself.

And, in a way, he kind of did, employing a game plan and strategy that brought the home town fans to a roof-shaking frenzy Saturday at UFC Fight Night in Rogers Place.

“In terms of life moments MMA related, it has to be number one,” said the Edmonton heavyweight after a brutal beatdown of Brazilian Jhonata Diniz. “I honestly can’t put it into words. I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”

On a night when the Canadians started out 0-for-6, Boser snapped the drought by dominating from start to finish — culminating in a convincing third-round TKO.

The final punch count stats were 174-34 for Boser, who landed 158 punches when he had Diniz on the ground. To win is one thing, to win like this is almost more than he could have dreamed of. And he’s been dreaming about this a long time, since his his scheduled UFC debut in Edmonton seven years ago got cancelled at the last minute when his opponent tested positive for a banned substance.

“I was being very conscious to enjoy it,” he said of the experience. “This isn’t something that I may never get to do again, you don’t know. To be able to do this when it was such a long time coming, I had to make sure that I really was enjoying this process because it’s something that a couple of years ago I didn’t think was going to happen.

“To be able to do it was a blessing, it was surreal.”

Boser said before the fight that he’s never had a takedown attempt in his career, so don’t expect any on Saturday, but he executed the technique brilliantly.

“It WAS part of the game plan,” he laughed. “I lied to you guys before the fight. Those were the first three takedowns of my UFC career.

“He’s a very good fighter, he’s an incredible kickboxer but he does have a weakness for takedowns. I don’t think anybody is going to look at it and think, ‘Wow Boser is a real wrestling specialist.’ This was just the path of least resistance.”

It was a mauling. Boser took Diniz down midway the first round and began the punishment. It was more of the same, only worse, in the second round. Boser took him down again, had him crucified, cut him open and pounded him with body shots. He took him down in the third round, moved into full mount and put Diniz away for good.

• Mandel Nallo of Vancouver demonstrated some elite-level striking in his showcase win over American Nate Landwehr. It was a clinic in kickboxing and it didn’t last very long. By 2:11 of the second round a bloodied Landwehr had enough and the referee stopped the beating.

• Javad Mahjoub, originally from Iran but now fighting out of Calgary, had Georgia’s Joel Faglier in big trouble, very nearly putting him away with some hammer fists, but the muscle-bound Mahjoub ran out of gas trying unsuccessfully for the stoppage and after that it was only a matter of time.

“He definitely stung me with a very good shot, he dropped me a couple of times, but we figured that if we weathered the storm we could get to him in the second or third round,” said Faglier, who took the fight on short notice when Mahjoub’s original opponent was injured in training.

The end came at 2:11 of the second round with Faglier’s convincing TKO.

“I’m never out of a fight,” he said. “Unless the doctor is out there waking me up, I’m going to fight. If you don’t separate me from consciousness I’m going to finish you.”

• Calgary’s Melissa Croden started strongly against Stockton, California’s Chelsea Chandler, but came out on the wrong end of a late-round submission.

Croden was getting the better of the first round, landing a few flurries of punches and a couple of takedowns, but everything changed in the final seconds when she took Chandler down for the second time. Chandler won the scramble, got into a position she’d been training for for months, put Croden in a kimura (arm lock) and won by submission with 10 seconds to go. It was the first submission loss of Croden’s career.

“I had (her arm) all the way behind her back, I had it right there before it was going to break and she wasn’t tapping, and then it popped,” said Chandler. “I knew I had to do something to get her arm not working so that if it went to the next round it would be one arm and two legs.”

• Katlyn Cerminara, in her first fight since March of 2004 (she gave birth 14 months ago), looked like she didn’t miss a beat. She flat out beat up Mackenzie Stiller, scoring a first-round TKO. Cerminara stunned her with a head kick, floored her with a right hand and started raining punches until the referee stepped in.

“I’m still here,” she said. “I’m ready for anyone in the division.”

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