my.nwi.com

MATT ERICKSON
cagedin.mma@gmail.com

LAS VEGAS | The preliminary card at UFC 106 on Saturday night had some exciting and unique moments.

After all, how often to MMA fans get to see a 10-7 round?

But fans at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas got to see that oddity — and a few more — on the preliminary card Saturday.

Welterweight Brian Foster, fighting out of Granite City, Ill., where he trains with Eastern Illinois University product Matt Hughes at his H.I.T. Squad camp, took two kicks to the head from Brock Larson. Coupled with a dominating performance in the round, Foster won it 10-7 before delivering more punishment to Larson in the second, when the bout was halted at the same time Larson was tapping from the punishment.

Foster said finding a way to be dominant on the ground was part of his strategy.

“Yeah, that was part of the game plan, to ground and pound him,” Foster said after the fight. “I counted on him being strong, so I didn’t come in trigger happy. I waited.”

The win was Foster’s first in the UFC. At UFC 103 in Dallas in September, he lost an exciting fight to Rick Story that was given the promotion’s Fight of the Night bonus award — $60,000 for Foster despite the loss. But he said he hopes the win gives him momentum.

“I knew he was going to be a rough fighter,” Foster said. “I plan on staying in the UFC for a long time.”

For the third straight pay-per-view, the UFC showed a portion of its preliminary card on cable partner Spike TV. To open that broadcast, Hawaiian Kendall Grove, a cast member of Season 3 of “The Ultimate Fighter,” pulled a victory from the brink of defeat.

Jake Rosholt, who beat Chris Leben in his UFC debut at UFC 102 in August, was beating Grove on the feet, landing punches and knees and keeping his opponent scrambling.

When Rosholt took Grove back to the ground, Grove gave his back. Rosholt looked as if he would posture up and throw some strikes. But Grove, the UFC’s tallest fighter, threw his legs up, wrapped them around Rosholt’s neck and then pulled his head down with his hands for a fight-ending triangle choke.

Grove, who got back in the win column and has three wins in his last four fights, told UFC broadcast analyst Joe Rogan after the fight that he was dedicating the fight to his grandmother, who died of cancer last week. And he said his speciality — the triangle choke — was a natural.

“Triangle’s my thing, dog,” Grove said. “Ever since I started doing jiu-jitsu — my long legs, that’s what works for me. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Also on the preliminary card, Fabricio Camoes and Caol Uno fought to a rare majority draw. Thanks to a point deduction for Camoes in the second round when he worked for a triangle from the ground and wound up kicking Uno in the head, two judges had the fight a 28-28 draw while a third had it 29-27 for Uno.

Ben Saunders, a 2-to-1 underdog, stopped Marcus Davis with two big knees, becoming the first fighter to ever finish “The Irish Hand Grenade.” And George Sotiropoulos finished Jason Dent with an armbar in the second round to lead off the card.