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Kailua’s Travis Browne suffered a stunning first-round TKO loss to Andrei Arlovski in a heavyweight fight on the main card of UFC 187 in Las Vegas on Saturday.
Browne (17-3-1, 8-3-1 UFC) took a series of powerful shots early in the fight but rebounded to knock down Arlovski with a right hand. Arlovski, a former UFC heavyweight champion, recovered and ended the fight with an uppercut and a right hook that forced the referee to stop it at 4 minutes, 41 seconds.
Browne was ranked No. 3 at heavyweight. Arlovski is now 24-10 and 13-4 in the UFC.
During the preliminary fights, the UFC announced Hilo’s B.J. Penn would enter the UFC’s Hall of Fame during the UFC Fan Expo on July 11 in Las Vegas.
Penn will enter the modern era category of the UFC Hall of Fame recognizing fighters who turned professional on or after Nov. 17, 2000, when the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts were created.
He’s still one of only two fighters to hold world titles in multiple weight classes, defeating Matt Hughes for the welterweight belt in January 2004 and Joe Stevenson for the vacant lightweight title at UFC 80.
According to FightMetric, the official statistics provider for the UFC, Penn (18-10-2) spent a total of 5 hours, 18 minutes and 7 seconds in the UFC Octagon, second-most of any fighter. He landed 1,736 strikes in his career (fourth-most), with 1,215 setting the lightweight division record. His 66.7 percent takedown completion rate remains the most accurate ever by a lightweight.