Protect yourself at all times – even if you’re the referee. Such was the situation Saturday at UFC Fight Night 233 after Steve Garcia brutally finished Melquizael Costa with a bombardment of strikes in their featherweight bout at the UFC Apex. In the opening moments of the second round, Garcia (21-6 MMA, 4-2 UFC) and Costa (14-6 MMA, 1-2 UFC) engaged in a scramble, at which point Garcia dropped Costa with a knee and right hand. From there, Garcia moved all in for the finish with an array of punches, hammerfists and elbows, which bloodied up Costa. When Costa could no longer defend himself, referee Chris Tognoni stopped the fight. And that’s when we saw just how discombobulated Costa was from the fight-ending sequence as he tried to take down the ref with a single-leg
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