UFC Austin fans saw one of the rarer ways to end a fight in all of mixed martial artists. Then they saw it again a half-hour later.
A pair of back-to-back prelim fights ended in wild fashion Saturday, with Drakkar Klose and Cody Brundage both ending their fights via a head slam.
Klose was up first, making a return to the Octagon after sitting out more than a year due to a torn ACL. The six-year UFC veteran got taken down early by Joe Solecki, but managed to get on top when his opponent went for his back. Solecki responded by going for an armbar, which turned out to be a very bad idea:
“S***, I was trying to follow up with one more punch,” Klose told ESPN’s Daniel Cormier after the fight. “I’m a nice guy, but when I’m in here, I like to be mean, baby.”
The next fight was similarly quick. Brundage and Zachary Reese started by exchanging blows on their feet, but a missed head kick resulted in a move to the ground game. Again, Reese tried to take Brundage’s arm and Brundage did the exact same thing:
“This cage must be a little harder than usual,” Brundage told Cormier. “I watched the guy before me do the same thing, so it was all good.”
To give you a sense of how rare two slam knockouts in a row is, MMA Junkie’s Nolan King noted there had been a total of 12 such knockouts recorded in all of UFC history entering Saturday, across hundreds of events and thousands of fights.
You really do see something new on every UFC card.
