Pavel Andrușca won on Saturday evening, 5 September, in his first fight in the UFC, the American mixed martial arts promotion. At the Accor Arena in Paris, the 24-year-old athlete trained at the Ungheni Sports School beat Britain’s Nathaniel Wood by unanimous decision, after three rounds.
The three judges scored it 30-27, 30-27 and 29-28 — all in his favor. He stays undefeated as a professional: nine fights, nine wins.
How the fight was decided
Two of the three judges gave him all three rounds. The third, Ben Cartlidge, gave the second round to Wood and finished at 29-28. The names of the other two do not appear in the published scorecards.
The second round was, then, the only one any judge awarded to the Briton. Wood caught him with a straight right over Andrușca’s guard, which briefly put him on the canvas. The Moldovan got back up, landed a takedown that bought him time to recover and went for an arm-triangle choke; Wood escaped. Towards the end of the round, Andrușca scored again with a flying knee and an elbow.
The first round, by contrast, was awarded to him by all three judges: a double-leg takedown, a right hand on the break from the clinch and another one towards the end of the round. In the third he stayed tight to his opponent in the clinch; Wood was already bleeding from a cut near his hairline when Andrușca took him down, in the last minute and a half, and controlled from top position, landing elbows and punches.
The referee in the cage — the official who runs the fight — was Herb Dean. The bout was contested at featherweight, and both athletes weighed in at 146.0 pounds (66.2 kg).
A fight taken on five days’ notice
Andrușca was not even scheduled for Paris. Wood was due to face Mairon Santos, who withdrew because of illness. Andrușca took the fight five days before the gala.
He went in as a betting underdog, against an opponent who was coming off four straight wins and had 14 fights in the UFC.
Their bout was the fifth of the 14 on the UFC Fight Night 287 card, named after the headliner Dan Hooker – Salahdine Parnasse. It was contested on the preliminary card — the fights that come before the main ones.
Nine out of nine
With the win in Paris, Andrușca’s record goes to 9-0. Seven of his fights ended before the limit — six by knockout or technical stoppage, one by submission. The other two by decision: his first professional fight, in March 2021, and this one.
The road here went through the Eagles FC, Khan Fight, Vendetta Fight Nights and UAE Warriors promotions. At the last of them, on 23 July, he had won by first-round knockout in Abu Dhabi. Between that fight and his UFC debut, 44 days passed.
The screening in the center of Ungheni
The Ungheni District Council had announced the screening a day earlier: “You can watch him compete in the center of Ungheni municipality, from 19.00, on Saturday!” On Saturday evening, the municipal town hall posted images from the square, with the text: “In Independence Square, we are waiting to watch the fight of Ungheni’s Pavel Andrușca.”
Nathaniel Wood’s reaction
The next day, Nathaniel Wood posted on his X account. He wrote, in English:
Unfortunately, I didn’t perform how I could or should have, sorry to my team for not doing what I needed. Losing really does spark something inside, I’ll be right back. Nathaniel Wood, UFC fighter
Wood’s record goes to 23 wins and 7 losses; his run of four straight victories ends.
The result and the scores come from the official UFC release. The named scorecard of judge Ben Cartlidge is published by the MMA Decisions database, which, for this fight, publishes a single named scorecard. The chronology of the rounds comes from the live report of the sports outlet Sherdog, which is also the source of the full record. The bout data — referee, weigh-in, position on the card — come from the Tapology page. The announcement of the public screening belongs to the Ungheni District Council, and the text with which the Ungheni municipal town hall posted images from Independence Square was consulted as a source. Nathaniel Wood’s quote appears here in the original English, as it was relayed by Sherdog from his post of 6 September; the Romanian version of the article carries the newsroom’s translation of it.