Ed Ruth scored a TKO victory at Bellator 224 (Photo/Bellator)It was a mixed night for former Big Ten wrestlers at Bellator 224 at WinStar Casino in Thackerville, Okla. Friday night, as Penn State mat champ Ed Ruth scored a second-round TKO ... while one-time University of Minnesota wrestler Joel Bauman was submitted in the first round.
"Ed Ruth had to take a little punishment along the way, but bounced back from his first career loss with a TKO win," reported MMAjunkie.com.
Here's how Sherdog.com described the former Nittany Lion's bout:
"Ed Ruth righted the ship after his first professional loss, busting up Kiichi Kunimoto with heavy ground-and-pound in the second round of their welterweight (170-pound) feature. Three-time NCAA wrestling champ Ruth was the dominant man throughout, but the beginning of the end came with a knee strike that dazed the Japanese veteran. Ruth followed him down and blasted him with punches until referee Todd Anderson pulled him off at 3:49."
Ruth bounced back from having suffered his first loss in his pro MMA career back in December at the quarterfinals of the welterweight grand prix at Bellator 213, having been submitted by Brazilian jiu-jitsu star Neiman Gracie. With this latest win, Ruth is now 7-1 in a career he launched in November 2016 ... while the 38-year-old Kunimoto, whose MMA career goes back more than a dozen years, drops to 20-8-2, with 1 NC.
Bauman, a two-time Minnesota high school state champ who had been a member of the Minnesota Golden Gophers wrestling team until being ruled ineligible by the NCAA for profiting from songs he had written and produced and put up online in 2013, came out on the losing end of his middleweight (185-pound) preliminary bout at Bellator 224.
Jordan Young defeated Bauman via submission -- a triangle choke -- at 3:20 of the first round.
In a post-fight video analysis posted on Facebook, Bauman said, "I still believe I could win that fight ... I was controlling the pace of the fight but then I made one mistake."
"No injuries. I'm ready to go again."
"I believe only good will come from this."
It was the first loss of Bauman's 3-1 pro career which is less than a year old ... while Young enhances his flawless five-year MMA career to a 11-0 record.
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