Saturday night ended up in disappointment for both Minnesota fighters at UFC 106 in Las Vegas.
In the third fight of the show, Brainerd's Brock Larson fell in defeat to Oklahoma's Brian Foster in the second round when he was forced to tap out to a series of hard strikes.
From the start of the fight, the usually explosive Larson allowed Foster to set the pace of the fight, and was more tentative than usual.
By the end of the first round, Larson's chances to win the fight were in serious trouble, after he had two points deducted for what were unintentional fouls. The first foul occurred when Larson was on his back and he kicked up at Foster, who was on his knees at Larson's feet. The kick ended up hitting Foster in the head, which made it an illegal blow for kicking an opponent who was on the mat in the head.
The second foul happened about a minute later when Larson had Foster in a front facelock. Foster was aware enough to put his hand on the mat, which, by the rules, gave him three points of contact with the canvas, making it illegal to strike him in the head once again.
Larson could not see the hand on the mat, and hit Foster with a knee. Without the hand down it would be a legal blow, but with his hand on the mat, the ref was forced to stop the bout again, and take a second point away from Larson. That put Larson in a bad positions, because it meant that it would be near impossible for him to come back and win a decision, already down two points in a three round fight.
It didn't matter though, as Larson got caught with an uppercut as he tried to take Foster down about three minutes into the second round. Foster quickly jumped on Larson and landed a handful of shots before Larson tapped out.
The other Minnesotan on the card, White Bear Lake's Jacob Volkmann, went the distance with his opponent, losing a three round decision to Brazil's Paulo Thiago.
