UFC Vegas 102 ended with a spectacular knockout as two middleweight collided in the main event.
A wild night of action at the UFC APEX in Las Vegas saw Gabriel Bonfim put Khaos William to sleep.
After that, a new prospect emerged as Jose Delgado KO’d Connor Matthews in the featured prelim.
Calvin Kattar slumped to his fourth straight defeat against unranked featherweight Youssef Zalal in the co-main event before Jared Cannonier and Gregory Rodrigues battled it out in a five-round fight to determine the next 185lb contender.
Jared Cannonier vs Gregory Rodrigues result
You could hear a pin drop in the UFC APEX when the UFC Vegas 102 main event got underway.
It didn’t take long for the atmosphere to explode as Rodrigues began landing big shots. Cannonier threw back some of his own, but he was dropped soon after. Luckily for him, Rodrigues let him off the hook by getting too close and allowing a grappling exchange to commence.
When they got back to the striking range, it became clear that Rodrigues was the bigger puncher as he scored another knockdown – but it again led to him getting into a grappling match with the one-time UFC middleweight title challenger.
There was lots of backward movement at the start of round two from Rodrigues. ‘Robocop’ looked gassed, but UFC commentator Daniel Cormier refused to believe that was true so early in the fight.
Whatever was happening, Cannonier began to work himself into the fight with big punches and effective grappling that only added to his opponent’s apparent cardio issues.
A war broke out in round three. Rodrigues was left covered in blood but he appeared to be winning with his stinging jab and hard straight shots.
However, everything changed with 15 seconds left on the clock as Cannonier dropped him with a sharp elbow and threatened to finish the fight with ground strikes until the bell sounded.
In round four, Cannonier came out and closed the show with a series of strikes that left his rival curled up in a ball against the cage after just 21 seconds.
Jared Cannonier reacts to his KO win
Cannonier spoke about making one final title run before headlining against Rodrigues on Saturday night.
After back-to-back losses against Caio Borralho and Nassourdine Imavov, another would’ve almost certainly led to a retirement announcement from the 40-year-old.
But that’s not what happened when he got some post-fight mic time after an impressive comeback win.
“I guess I was hurt enough to get dropped on my a– a couple of times in that fight,” Cannonier admitted. “Naturally so, Gregory hits hard as hell and he was slinging big f—— shots.
“I was able to weather the storm and keep my composure even in those really tough spots and work my way back up to my feet.
“I’d rather die on my feet than die on my back.