Two judges scored it 29-28 for Turcios, while one judge saw it differently and scored it 29-28 for Natividad.
Turcios and Natividad were in a wild and close fight. Natividad scored take downs in all three rounds and rocked Turcios with a left hook in the second round.
The 29-year-old Turcios, who’s of Filipino and Ecuadorian descent, made a huge move in the third round and got Natividad’s back with a body triangle. He did some damage with some ground-and-pound and had a couple of rear-naked choke attempts.
Turcios bounced back from a loss to Aiemann Zahabi and improved to 12-3, while Natividad, who’s Filipino-Hawaiian, suffered his third straight defeat in the UFC and dropped to 9-4.
The heavyweight main event bout between Derrick Lewis and Sergey Spivak was cancelled after the former reportedly was hospitalized on the day of the fight.
The light heavyweight fight between Kennedy Nzechukwu and Ion Cutelaba was elevated to the main event.
Nzechukwu (11-3) knocked out Cutelaba (16-9-1) in the second round.
In other fights, Waldo Cortes Acosta (9-0) beat Chase Sherman (16-11) by unanimous decision; Muslim Salikhov (19-3) demolished Andre Fialho (16-6) in the third round; Jack Della Maddalena (13-2) destroyed Danny Roberts (18-7) in the opening round; Charles Johnson squeaked past Zhalgas Zhumagulov(14-8); Jennifer Maia (20-9-1) won against No. 15 ranked flyweight Maryna Moroz (11-4); Miles Johns (13-2) defeated Vince Morales (11-7) by unanimous decision; Vanesssa Demopoulos (9-4) outclassed Maria Oliveira (13-6) by unanimous decision; Brady Hiestand (6-2) also walked out with a unanimous decision over Fernie Garcia (10-3); and Natalia Silva (14-5-1)stopped Tereza Bleda (6-1) in the third round. (EKA)