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Davi Ramos was the biggest favorite of the night, and it took him very little time to show why.

Ramos (9-2 MMA, 3-1 UFC) tapped out John Gunther (7-1 MMA, 1-1 UFC) with a rear-naked choke at the 1:57 mark of the first round. All three of his UFC wins have come by rear-naked choke.

The bout was part of the preliminary card of today’s UFC Fight Night 136 event at Pepsi Center in Denver. It aired on FS1 following additional prelims on UFC Fight Pass and ahead of the main card on FS1.

Ramos took Gunther down just 10 seconds into the fight. He quickly worked to take his back and tried to flatten him out to get his hooks in for a rear-naked choke. Up against the fence, Ramos punched Gunther a few times, then got the choke on with relative ease.

Gunther tried to fight it off and broke it momentarily. But a few moments later, Ramos got it back on again and squeezed tight. Gunther looked like he didn’t want to tap, but eventually had to rather than go out cold.

“I have a lot of things to improve,” Ramos said. “I wanted to show more of my striking and have been training a lot. I need to improve my striking, but I knew he wanted to take me down. I’m really happy with my performance. That’s three submissions in a row. He wasn’t a hard opponent to understand. His game is wrestling, so that’s why I focused a lot more on my striking. But when we went down, I just got him.

“I want to fight (lightweight champion) Khabib (Nurmagomedov). I want to fight the best and be champion of this division. No one can beat me in this division. I have a lot to improve. I want to fight more and get more experience. Khabib has 27 fights and I only have 11. I want to be more experienced, but I’m 100 percent sure I’ll be better than him. I believe his striking is not that good. Mine needs to improve, of course, but I’ve been training a lot. You can’t talk about his jiu-jitsu compared to mine. All he has is wrestling. Let’s see what he’s got.”

Ramos won for the third straight time. Gunther lost for the first time in his pro career after a perfect 7-0 start.

Up-to-the-minute UFC Fight Night 139 results include:

• Davi Ramos def. John Gunther via submission (rear-naked choke) – Round 1, 1:57
• Devonte Smith def. Julian Erosa via knockout (punches) – Round 1, 0:46
• Eric Shelton def. Joseph Morales via split decision (29-28, 27-30, 30-27)
• Mark De La Rosa def. Joby Sanchez via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 30-27)

For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 139, check out the UFC Events section of the site.