Jack Hermansson: ‘Naked’ Takedowns Led to TKO Defeat at UFC Copenhagen

Heading into UFC Fight Night 160, Jack Hermansson had been victorious in six of his last seven Octagon appearances, and all but one of those fights ended inside of a round.

“The Joker” looked eager to live up to his reputation early on against Jared Cannonier in Saturday’s headliner at Royal Arena in Copenhagen, Denmark, as he pressured his opponent with leg kicks and takedown attempts in the opening stanza.

After a furious couple of minutes, however, Cannonier began to impose his will. A series of hard leg kicks from “The Killa Gorilla” began to turn the tide at the end of Round 1, and then the Alaska native rocked Hermansson with an uppercut from a telegraphed takedown at the outset of the second frame. From there, Cannonier pounced on his dazed adversary and punished him with powerful ground-and-pound, bringing an end to the contest just 27 seconds into Round 2.

Hermansson acknowledged that failing to set up his takedowns with strikes could have contributed to his demise.

“I was going for the takedown pretty early in the fight, like ‘OK, this is where I want to fight.’ I locked myself a little bit in that mode,” Hermansson said on the ESPN+ post-fight show. “That resulted in that I didn’t have the correct setups for my takedowns. They were a little bit naked, and it was easy for Jared to time that uppercut and find the finish.”

All told, Hermansson landed just one of six takedowns in the opening frame. Normally the Sweden-based fighter is able to control his foes on the mat, but Cannonier consistently returned to his feet in short order.

“(It was) not surprising,” Hermansson said. “I knew he was going to be hard to take down and hard to keep there. It was really tricky to be on top of him. I couldn’t manage to keep him down there, so good work from Jared.”

Hermansson on a four-bout winning streak, and a five-round verdict over Ronaldo Souza in his previous outing established him as a dark horse candidate in the middleweight division. The loss to Cannonier knocks the 31-year-old down the divisional pecking order a few notches, and he hopes to get a chance to bounce back before 2019 concludes.

“I want to get one more this year at least,” Hermansson said. “That’s my goal.”