There are periods of ups and downs in the life of any athlete. In this article, we will talk about a fighter named Luke Rockhold, who managed to be the champion of two prestigious MMA organizations - UFC and Strikeforce.
Birth and family
The fighter was born on October 17, 1984 in the United States of America, in the city of Santa Cruz, located in California. Luke Rockhold comes from a sports family, as his brother is a world-famous surfer, and his father is a famous basketball player in the past. Luke himself already at school began to pay attention to wrestling and eventually moved to jujitsu, according to the rules of which he was able to win several tournaments.
Mixed Martial Arts
As an MMA fighter, the American made his debut in 2007. In the first match, he was able to prematurely defeat Mike Martinez painful hand. However, in his second fight, Luke Rockhold was knocked out, and Tony Rubalkava became his offender.
After some time, our hero ended up in Strikeforce. In this promotion, he won a number of brilliant victories, which eventually allowed him to fight for the champion’s belt. In September 2011, Luke entered the cage with the Brazilian Ronaldo Souza, who at that time owned the organization’s title. The fight turned out to be competitive, and the judges gave their preference to Rockhold.
After conquering the belt, Luke made two successful defenses. His opponents were Keith Jardine and Tim Kennedy. After that, in early 2013, the promotion ceased to exist.
Performances at the Ultimate Fighting Championship
The debut in the leading organization of the world of MMA turned out to be extremely unsuccessful for the American. His first rival was former promotion champion Vitor Belfort. Before their fight, Luke Rockhold expressed firm confidence in his victory, but he was rigidly knocked out by a Brazilian with a kick from the head to the head.
But already in his next fight, a member of the American Kickboxing Academy team rehabilitated in front of the public. His second opponent was Kostas Filippu. The fight did not last all the allotted rounds, and the Greek was knocked out by a blow to the liver. Also, this battle of Luc Rokhold was recognized as one of the best in the evening, and the fighter himself received an award for the brightest knockout of the tournament.
This fight started a series of very successful performances of the American, and in the next three fights such octagon titans as Tim Botch, Michael Bisping and Lyoto Machida were defeated.
Championship
Luke Rockhold, whose weight before the fight is 83.9 kilograms, thanks to which he clearly fits into the middle division, December 12, 2015 met with the holder of the promotion belt Chris Weidman at that time. In the first round, the applicant acted somewhat worse than the champion, but in the second five-minute period he took the initiative into his own hands and literally “killed” Weidman. In the fourth round, Luke was able to transfer Chris to the ground, but failed to consolidate the success. Everything was decided already in the fourth five-minute period, when Rockhold literally destroyed the champion in the stalls with punches, severely breaking his face, which forced the referee to stop the spectacular fight.
Luke's championship did not last long, and already during the first defense of the title, he lost by knockout to the British Michael Bisping.