Leon Edwards wasted no time in calling out Jorge Masvidal following an impressive showing against Rafael dos Anjos at UFC: San Antonio.
The Brit scored a convincing unanimous decision win on the scorecards (50-45, 49—46, 49-46) over the Brazilian.
Edwards (18-3) now has the second longest winning streak in the UFC’s welterweight division, behind champ Kamaru Usman, and will improve on his 12th place in the rankings.
Dos Anjos, fourth ranked in the division going into the fight, falls to 27-12.
Edwards looked comfortable for long periods against the former lightweight champ, regularly finding a home for his straight left, and short elbows.
It was an elbow that threatened the contest in the second round with Edwards finding his target flush on the right eyebrow of dos Anjos opening up a nasty wound that quickly bled heavily. It was inspected by the doctor at the start of the third, and given the green light.
While Edwards was unable to capitalize and finish the fight, he still picked up a comfortable win.
‘Rocky’ immediately turned his attention to Jorge Masvidal. The pair had a highly publicised backstage altercation following UFC: London earlier this year and Edwards is keen to seek retribution.
Masvidal, hot on the back of his record-breaking win over Ben Askren, responded to the call-out saying on Twitter that he had been promised a title shot and wouldn’t be entertaining anything else until then.
Elsewhere, Walt Harris picked up the biggest win of his career with a first round knockout of Alexey Oleynik. A big knee was followed up by a huge left hand to end things after just 12 seconds of the opening round.
It didn’t take Greg Hardy too much longer to dispose of Juan Adams. In the battle of the heavyweight prospects, it was Hardy who won inside 25 seconds of the first round by TKO following a number of unanswered shots on the ground.
Kiwi Dan Hooker picked up a huge win of his own when he turned the lights out on James Vick, Alexander Hernandez outlasted veteran Francisco Trinaldo to grab a unanimous decision, while former heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski outpointed Ben Rothwell.