The first round didn't have a lot of action, with Roberts attacking with a variety of head kicks and superman punches which Attonito came forward with two-punch combos. Attonito stuffed two Roberts' takedown attempts and ended up on top himself at the end of the first.
The second started with Roberts successfully getting a takedown and quickly transitioning to the back, where he sunk in hooks and threatened with a rear naked choke. Attonito escaped and took top position though, where he remained for the rest of the round while landing solid shots to the body and a few elbows to the head.
Roberts entered the third visibly exhausted, and ate a lot of shots from Attonito over the course of the round while Attonito stuffed his takedown attempts. Roberts landed a couple of nice counterpunches to show he was still there, but Attonito wrecked him with a huge head kick halfway through the round. Roberts survived, but ate a bunch of right hands and was taken down twice over the next two minutes to seal the deal for Attonito.
As stated above, Attonito was making his welterweight debut in this fight. He was a contestant on The Ultimate Fighter 11 and won his first two UFC fights over Jamie Yager and Rafael Natal before dropping a decision to Dave Branch at The Ultimate Fighter 12 finale in December. Roberts was 3-2 in the UFC going into this fight, picking up a submission of the night bonus with his 73-second anaconda choke finish of Mike Guymon at UFC 121. He was coming off a decision loss to Claude Patrick at UFC 129.
