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Light Heavyweight Champ David Branch Punches Past Vinny Magalhaes in WSOF 33 Headliner
- Updated: October 8, 2016
David Branch mapped out the path to his latest conquest with his hands. The Renzo Gracie protégé battered and abused Vinny Magalhaes for the better part of five rounds, as he retained the World Series of Fighting light heavyweight championship with a one-sided unanimous decision in the WSOF 33 headliner on Friday at the Municipal Auditorium Arena in Kansas City, Missouri. Branch (19-3) carried all three scorecards by a comfortable 50-44 margin, earning his ninth straight win.Virtually nothing went right for Magalhaes (14-8). Branch paired a punishing left jab with two- and three-punch flurries, as he kept the 2011 Abu Dhabi Combat Club Submission Wrestling World Championships gold medalist on his heels. He leveled Magalhaes with a lunging left hook in the second round and seemed to be closing in on a finish on more than one occasion. The challenger was never the same. Branch spent rounds three, four and five picking apart the Brazilian from the outside with his jab and ripping intermittent left hooks to the head. Afterward, Magalhaes announced his retirement from mixed martial arts competition. In the catchweight co-main event, Joao Zeferino cut down Jason High with third-round punches. High (20-6) succumbed to blows 51 seconds into round three, and while he was clearly dazed, he was lucid enough to immediately protest referee Marc Wasem’s decision to call for the stoppage. Zeferino (21-8) extricated himself from a guillotine choke inside the first 30 seconds, slowly gained control of the match and kept his opponent off-balance with takedowns, positional control and ground-and-pound. Early in round three, High buzzed the Brazilian’s tower with a stiff punch but left his own head unguarded. …
