If 2025 carries on from where UFC Vegas 101 left off, MMA fans are in for another incredible year of action.
Out of the 14 fights that went down this past Saturday, nine ended in a finish – two via armbar submission, and a whopping seven via KO/TKO.
Undoubtedly the best/worst knockout of the night was landed on popular middleweight prospect Abdul Razak Alhassan, who suffered a truly vicious KO loss on the main card.
Abdul Razak Alhassan breaks silence after KO loss at UFC Vegas 101
From fighters slapping their coaches to insane last-second knockouts, UFC Vegas 101 was a solid way to welcome in a new year of Mixed Martial Arts violence.
Yet just one event into 2025, and we already have a potential ‘knockout of the year’ contender on our hands in the form of Cesar Almeida’s devastating KO over Alhassan.
After a wild opening exchange that saw both men swinging for the fences, it appeared as if Alhassan was only seconds away from victory, but as he unloaded from the pocket along the fence, was caught with a picture-perfect left hook.
The Ghanian was unconscious before he’d even hit the canvas, with veteran reporter Luke Thomas stating that “this will be a contender for KO of the year.”
Alhassan has now reacted to the brutal stoppage loss, acknowledging in a now-deleted Instagram post that he got ‘greedy’ as he searched for the knockout and paid the ultimate price.
“I’m sorry fans. I got greedy and I got caught. No excuses. I’m sorry to my fans, my true fans…
“I got greedy and went for it and got caught. There’s nothing I can do but cry myself to sleep.”
The defeat means that Alhassan drops to 12-7 as a professional and is now winless in his last three fights; at 39 years old, there still might be enough time for him to get back in the win column before he hangs up the gloves for good.
Cesar Almeida’s KO was one of nine nasty finishes at UFC Vegas 101
As previously noted, UFC Vegas 101 featured nine stoppages from 14 total fights with just one of the six main card bouts going to the judges’ scorecards.
In the main event of the evening, Mackenzie Dern scored a slick armbar submission in her rematch with Amanda Ribas to move one step closer to a strawweight title shot.
Chris Curtis was knocked out by Roman Kopylov with just one second left of the fight, prompting ‘The Action Man’ to rage at the referee before teasing that he could return to welterweight for his next bout.
Santiago Ponzinibbio landed a nasty third-round knockout over Carlston Harris, with Marco Tulio, Punahele Soriano, Fatima Kline, and Jacobe Smith also scoring big KO/TKO wins.
In particular, Smith called out welterweight champion Belal Muhammad after an insane first-round finish in his UFC debut and is definitely someone who MMA fans would do well to keep an eye on… Roll on UFC 311!