Dennis Bermudez used his excellent wrestling to completely control Pablo Garza for 15 minutes, picking up a unanimous decision victory in the first televised preliminary fight at UFC on Fox 3. Bermudez took the fight to the floor whenever he felt like it and used solid positional control mixed in with some steady ground and pound to negate any Garza offense from the bottom, other than a flurry of upkicks in the first round. Bermudez got his first UFC win with the solid display, taking all three judge's scorecards with 30-27 scores.
Bermudez came out and landed a big shot seconds into the bout, and looked for a slam takedown. Garza grabbed onto his neck though, and stopped it. After some clinch work, Bermudez landed the big slam. Garza locked on an inverted triangle but Bermudez popped out. Bermudez looked to land the big shot in guard while Garza hunted for subs. Garza landed five nice upkicks, one of which stunned Bermudez. Bermudez jumped back on top, but Garza looked for a kimura, then a triangle. Garza finally got back up. The fighters exchanged kicks, and Bermudez just tossed Garza to the mat at the end of the round.
The fighters spent a a minute of the second round against the cage before Bermudez scooped Garza up for another slam takedown. Bermudez methodically landed punches in guard, with Garza pressed up against the cage and unable to attack from the bottom. Finally he got some room and threw elbows to the head. Bermudez eventually let Garza up, but slammed him right back down. Garza got up again at the end of the round but was unable to get anything going.
After some wild shots to open the final stanza, Garza attempted to pull guard but was slammed for his troubles. Bermudez continued to grind away in Garza's guard, landing punches and elbows while stifling any Garza offense from his back. Even though Bermudez was working, the referee chose at stand them up. It didn't take long for Bermudez to take it back down though. Bermudez advanced to mount with a minute to go and eventually took the back, looking for the choke. Garza fought it off until the final horn.
Garza was looking to bounce back from a submission loss to Dustin Poirier at UFC on Fox 1, while Bermudez was looking for his first UFC win.