‘Babalu’ Sobral gets a stand-up victory

Renato “Babalu” Sobral wanted to prove he could win Wednesday night’s Strikeforce main event against Robbie Lawler on his feet, and even when circumstances begged for Sobral to take the bout to the canvas, he stuck to the plan.

A narrow, but unanimous, victory by decision was Sobral’s reward. All three judges, Abe Belardo, Lester Griffin and Nelson Hamilton, gave Sobral a 29-28 edge in the three-round fight.

The Costa Mesa fighter threw more than 100 punches to Lawler’s total, and outkicked him by a near 10-to-1 margin to win the 195-pound catch-weight bout before 5,259 at L.A. Live’s Nokia Theatre in downtown Los Angeles.

Lawler (17-6) appeared to have suffered left arm and side pain when Sobral (36-8) kicked him during the second round. Lawler afterward said his inactivity from the left side was “a ploy, a decoy to suck [Sobral] in so I could knock him out.”

But the absence of southpaw action from Lawler was a ploy as effective as a self-inflicted gunshot.

Sobral, who has been schooled by a boxing coach, Justin Fortune, after a reputation built on jujitsu and wrestling, declined to charge forward toward the powerful strikes of Lawler and landed enough scoring kicks and elbows to endure obvious fatigue.

After the bell, Sobral’s right eye was puffed up, and he said he’d prefer not to fight his friend, Strikeforce light-heavyweight champion Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal, next. Sobral said he would prefer to fight veteran MMA fighter Dan Henderson of Temecula.

Earlier, Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos, the husband of Strikeforce women’s champion Cris “Cyborg” Santos, scored a first-round technical knockout of England’s Marius Zaromskis (13-5).

Santos (18-13) weakened Zaromskis with an earlier kick and left-right combination . A hard left hand backed up Zaromskis, but he tried to surge forward in response only to be greeted by a hard right hand that caused Zaromskis to fall back and strike the back of his head on the mat. Santos pounced, and so did referee Herb Dean, stopping the fight at the 2:38 mark.

San Diego’s K.J. Noons (9-2) defeated Hollywood’s Conor Heun (8-4) by split-decision in a 160-pound catch-weight bout. Noons recovered from getting pounded on the canvas in the first round to land some significant blows to Heun’s head in the second, then cut Heun with an accidental head butt in the third and punished him with kicks and combinations in the final minute — a key, lasting impression.

Heun, who won all three rounds on one judge’s scorecard, acknowledged the cut affected his vision.

“By the third round, I was aiming at the guy in the middle,” Heun said.

Former Army Special Forces member Tim Kennedy (12-2) pressed Trevor Prangley to the canvas midway through the first round, causing him to tap out at the 3:35 mark to win the 185-pound bout.

lance.pugmire@latimes.com