Damon Upton-Greer has won a points decision over David Butt almost three years since the current and former Launceston fighters last stepped in the same octagon.
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The 75kg main event at Valor 15 lived up to fans’ expectations after both men slugged it out over three, at times, brutal rounds.
The judges would award the fight to Upton-Greer in a 29-28, 29-28 and 30-27 call.
Upton-Greer has now sought revenge for his last-time controversial loss to Butt in November 2013 to now claim two of their three bouts.
The 23-year-old appeared to control the early stages with a series of round kicks that connected to Butt’s head on a multiple of times.
The blows were so flush that Butt suffered profuse bleeding to his right ear at the end of the opening round.
But it was Butt who took the initiative with round and side kicks in the first 30 seconds of the second round catching Upton-Greer off the guard.
The pair swapped punches and counterpunches before Butt got back on top of his Launceston-trained fighter.
Finding a gap in his defence, Butt tacked Upton-Greer to the legs and forced the contest into a mat grapple next to the octagon’s perimeter.
Butt started the third in a similar fashion, preferring to like Upton-Greer on his back against the cage in front of his vocal corner.
But Upton-Greer found a way for leverage, reversing the positioning.
He pulled the Gold Coast brawler into a chin lock much to the crowd’s approval.
Sitting on top for a minute, Upton-Greer threw in a few punches for good measure.
Butt still refused to submit, fighting back bravely and swinging a series of left blows to Upton-Greer’s head during the tough loss.
In the second main event, Launceston’s Christine Tatnell finished Canberra opponent Belinda Sedgwick in just 28 seconds.
The referee was forced to stop the mismatch after Sedgwick failed to land a punch and her defences went missing.
Tatnell recently signed a deal to fight in a North American promotion.