Coming in heavily hyped, American Top Team heavyweight Todd Duffee scored the fastest KO in UFC history over Tim Hague. 0:07 into the fight. Duffee caught Hague with a short sharp shocking jab to drop him and then followed him down to finish with powerful ground and pound.
As our own Leland Roling wrote this week, Duffe had already built quite a buzz before making his UFC debut:
Duffee currently trains out of one of the best camps in the country in American Top Team down in Coconut Creek, Florida as well as HardCore Gym in Athens, Georgia. While his record seems minuscule in comparison to Hague’s record, Duffee did manage to actually finish former UFC fighter Assuerio Silva at Jungle Fight 11 back in September of 2008. Silva isn’t exactly the type of fighter who is easily finished, yet Duffee managed to punch him to stoppage in two rounds. Quite impressive.
A Southern Illinois boy who didn’t want to wrestle because he “didn’t want to wear the whole leotard thing”, Duffee moved down to Atlanta, Georgia with his mother in his late teens and became interested in MMA when he got involved in a more extensive boxing gym than what he had been working at in Illinois. He began training two times per day, every day once he had entered the mind set that he wanted to fight professionally. A plethora of amateur fights and four professional bouts puts the 23-year-old where he is today with a UFC contract.
Duffee has been described by some fans who’ve watched him as relentless. He has tremendous power, but his most significant attribute is probably his work ethic in the cage. From some of the footage I’ve seen of Duffee, he’s a guy that will outwork his opponents. While he isn’t a jiu-jitsu black belt or wrestling phenom, he definitely has the knowledge of how to defeat those types of opponents. Hague isn’t going to be the type of fighter to truly bring a dangerous ground game like Assuerio Silva presented, so this may be the perfect fight for Duffee to make a statement that he’s a legit up-and-comer in the division.
This battle has a tad of interest from me because of some of the hype surrounding Duffee. Duffee is still a very young fighter, but he’s being molded by some great camps and trainers. He has a heavy-handed striking game, but he’s one of those cardio machines that will give almost anyone problems if you let him. Hague, while possessing a ground game and some power in his hands as well, has some glaring weaknesses. One of his biggest problems, a problem that Patrick Barry should have researched, is that Hague can be easily devastated with leg kicks, and Duffee should probably take note of that in this showdown. If he can work leg kicks to set up his powerful hands, this could be a quick win for Duffee.
Duffee has shown he can impress in the UFC against the lowest tier in the division. It will be very interesting to see Duffee step up in competition, perhaps against one of the heavyweights who won tonight. Mike Russow would be a perfect test for Duffee.