Maheshate makes Flowers tap with foot in short-notice Road to UFC win

It would be hard for Maheshate to ask for a much better return to the UFC than the one he turned in Friday.

On only about a week's notice, Maheshate (12-5 MMA, 3-4 UFC) filled in for teammate Taiyilake Nueraji and submitted Darrius Flowers (13-9-1 MMA, 1-4 UFC) midway through the first round. Maheshate caught Flowers with an arm-in guillotine choke and forced him to tap using his foot.

The bout headlined the Road to the UFC event at Shanghai Oriental Sports Center in China. It was one of two UFC fights on the card following the Road to the UFC Season 5 semifinals at women's strawweight, flyweight, bantamweight and featherweight.

Maheshate found himself outside the UFC after a 1-4 stretch, but picked up a second-round TKO just a month ago for the WKG promotion in China. When Nueraji had to pull out of the lightweight fight, he stepped in and picked up just the second submission win of his career – and first since his second pro fight more than seven years ago.

Flowers' momentum after a TKO of Lando Vannata in April is wiped out – though he missed weight for that fight. He now has dropped four of his past five, all in the UFC.

A co-featured UFC bout also part of the card ended in a split draw between Yilizhati Maimaitijiang (7-1-1 MMA, 0-0-1 UFC) and Tre'ston Vines (10-4-1 MMA, 0-1-1 UFC).

Check out Maheshate's finish of Flowers below.

GIVE HIM HIS FLOWERS 😎

Maheshate wastes NO TIME in finding the submission in RD1 for the short-notice win!#RTU5pic.twitter.com/nzpMWdAmuy

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Maheshate makes Flowers tap with foot in short-notice Road to UFC win