WEC 32

RIO RANCHO, N.M., Feb. 13 -- Carlos Condit defeated Carlo Prater to retain his WEC welterweight championship Wednesday.

A native of Albuquerque, Condit came out to a thunderous roar of support from 4,648 local fans chanting his name inside the Santa Ana Star Center. He started the fight exchanging leg kicks with Prater, who had handed him his first career loss, oddly enough in Albuquerque, in September 2004.

Prater, 26, of Brasilia, Brazil, scored a swift takedown. However, Condit used his long frame to control from the guard, where he began to work submissions.

After a failed armbar, Condit switched to a guillotine. He lost the hold but sat up and tried again, this time successfully sinking in the choke at 3:48 of the first round.

"I'm very comfortable on my back, like I've proven before," Condit said. "All my wins in the WEC so far have come by submission. I'm not complaining at all."

Winning in front of his home crowd was almost too much for the 23-year-old mixed martial artist to handle.

"It feels great," Condit said. "More than that, it feels so good I'm speechless right now. It feels so good to just be in front of my hometown, all the support I got. Beating a guy like Carlo Prater,he's a badass. I was able to catch him tonight, but he's an incredible fighter. I'm overwhelmed."

The win improved Condit's record to 22-4, including three submission victories in WEC championship bouts. In defeat Prater dropped to 21-6-1.

In lightweight title action, Huntington Beach, California's Rob McCullough relinquished his belt to Jamie Varner.

Following two relatively slow rounds that saw Varner go after McCullough with takedown attempts and a solid boxing game, the challenger finally tasted the champion's power in the third when a right hand knocked out his mouthpiece.

Varner, 23, of Tempe, Ariz., recovered to score with a left that had McCullough reeling. More punches followed from the underdog before a straight right hit its mark and dropped the 30-year-old McCullough to the canvas.

The soon-to-be champion plastered "Razor" Rob with a third straight right that put the tattooed fighter on the canvas for good, forcing referee Steve Mazzagatti to call the fight 2:54 into the round.

"I grew up boxing," said Varner, now 14-2 with two no contests. "Everybody called me a wrestler. He expected me to wrestle. So I kind of put my wrestling on the backburner during this training camp and really worked on my striking -- and man it really paid off tonight."

Miguel Torres, 27, of East Chicago, Ind., used slick jiu-jitsu to take Chase Beebe's bantamweight belt at 3:59 of round one.

After the fighters exchanged a few kicks, including one that had Beebe dazed, the bout went to the ground. Torres was in charge the whole time.

"I knew he was a really good wrestler," Torres said. "I knew he was working on his hands for a while. I wanted to box him. I've been using my hands for a long time. When it went to the ground, basic jiu-jitsu."

Beebe, a 22-year-old from Chicago, fought off an armbar attempt. Torres then transitioned impressively from an anaconda to a reverse rear-naked choke to a modified guillotine submission hold that forced the tap from Beebe, who fell to 11-2.

"I had the anaconda choke," said Torres, 21-1. "I didn't want to roll because I know he was a good wrestler. He defended, so I jumped for the guard. I had it tight. I felt my hand slipping. He was pulling my arm down. I felt his neck open and I went for his neck."

In the first televised fight of the night, a scoring error was overturned to give Manny Tapia a split decision over Antonio Banuelos.

The judges initially scored the fight a split draw. After the correction, the final tally was 30-27 Tapia, 29-28 Banuelos and 29-28 Tapia. Cecil Peoples was the lone judge who scored the fight for Banuelos.

Undercard

UFC veteran Leonard Garcia, who trains in Albuquerque with Greg Jackson's team, made quick work of Hiroyuki Takaya, scoring a knockout at 1:31 of the first round.

Josh Grispi put Mark Hominick to sleep after a slick takedown. The Canadian had turned his back on Grispi, thinking he was safe. Grispi scored the takedown, then jumped on his opponent's back. After failing to get the rear-naked the first time, Grispi locked in the choke and held it for quite a while before the ref intervened at 2:55 of the first round.

Coty Wheeler finished off Del Hawkins in spectacular fashion. Another Albuquerque product, Wheeler landed the ever-evasive flying armbar at 1:57 of the second round.

Greg Jackson fighter Damacio Page grinded out a hard-fought unanimous decision over Scott Jorgenson after taking the fight on eight days' notice.

Charlie Valencia was the victim of a vicious body kick from Yoshiro Maeda. The strike crumbled him and gave the Japanese fighter a victorious U.S. debut via TKO at 2:29 of the first round.

Micah Miller knocked out Chance Farrar in the first fight of the night. He landed a beautiful right hand and followed up with two more punches that rained down on Farrar, finishing the bout at 1:39 of round one.