‘I may never get’ a win like that again – Molly McCann relishes ‘Mark Hunt step-over’ KO at UFC London

One of the highlights of Saturday’s UFC London card was Molly McCann’s sensational finish over Luana Carolina. “Meatball” ended the fight with a spectacular spinning elbow that flattened Carolina in the first half of the third round.

Prior to UFC London, McCann’s last stoppage win happened in 2016, three years before her Octagon debut. And even after two days removed from that night, she’s rightfully still ecstatic about her performance.

“I was saying to the media team and everyone, ‘I may never get that again.’ I might never get a knockout like that again, I don’t think. Women or men don’t really get them,” McCann told Ariel Helwani during Monday’s episode of The MMA Hour.

“I don’t even, I can’t even now, I’m floating, I’m so at peace because this is the moment I’ve been waiting for. I’ve had battles with my own mind and I’ve battled against them and everyone could just see how calm I was last week and it was just time. It was just my time.”

McCann compared her finish to one of the many knockout wins of the legendary Mark Hunt.

“It’s something that when you chase a submission or you chase a finish, they don’t come. When you’re loose and you’re sharp, they come. And when I’m not tense,” she explained.

“I’ve only knocked one person down I think in the UFC and that was Ariane Lipski, but when I done that it was like a sharp backhand and I didn’t load up. That elbow, I just looked to the side and I just gave a glance up and I thought, ‘Is it on? Is it on,’ just keep going, look, go, boom. There was no pause or tense it was just go.

“I didn’t put power into it, it was just 100 percent commit to it and I’m never, ever gonna stop thinking about that moment where the referee had to push me out of the way.

“I wasn’t gonna go back in because I could see she was out but you pray for them moments. Like, a Mark Hunt step-over. You pray for them and what really blew me away was when [UFC President Dana White] said, ‘I don’t think you’ll ever see a better knockout from a female ever again.’ That doesn’t happen. Those kinds of finishes don’t happen.

McCann was one of the nine finishers that night who took home an extra $50K for Performance of the Night, which was also the first time the organization gave out that many bonuses. But for her, that knockout alone was life-changing.

“I’ve been committed to the game. I feel as if MMA, that fight, that night gave me back everything that I’ve put into it and in one second it possibly changed my life forever.”

The 31-year-old Liverpool native is now on a two-fight win streak as she improves her record to 12-4.