By Michael Owens
Knockouts are plentiful and often so spectacular it’s hard to decide which one deserves the accolade of the year’s best. Of course there are exceptions. If – for example – Andy Silva is front kicking world class fighters in the face to defend word titles the selection process is pretty damn easy. However, 2013 was a banner year for outrageous knockouts at the very highest level of competition and the choice was not quite so clear cut.
There were plenty of cool KOs like Mark Hunt’s walk-off jaw break of Stefan Struve in Australia or Emanuel Newton’s nonchalont spinning backfist of King MO (which gains extra points for being a huge upset as well). Then you have a the kind of career-defining shots that may not have been flashy, but they sent shockwaves around the MMA world. Look no further than Chris Weidman’s middleweight-torch-capturing left hook to end Anderson Silva’s horseplay and claim the title.
KOs that came from fantastic and unorthodox techniques are also worth special consideration because of their rarity and wow-factor. Junior Dos Santos’s exclamation point of a spinning hook kick that ruined Mark Hunt’s life at UFC 160 and Vitor Belfort’s heel to the jaw of Luke Rockhold were the standout entries from this category. Finally, there are the absurdly violent and shocking conclusions to fights, and there was no finer example of that last year than when Antonio ‘Bigfoot’ Silva took Alistair Overeem to the woodshed and (with a deliberate omission of eloquence) smashed his fucking face in with his freakish, ham-sized fists at UFC 156.
It is with a heavy heart that I have to single out one knockout for selection as the overall best of 2013. Each of the eight I chose for the shortlist were marvellously vicious in their own right and deserve recognition and preservation in some sort of permanent monument to competitive brutality. However, there can be only one winner, and my pick for the best KO of last year is Belfort’s masterclass of destruction over Luke Rockhold.
Belfort had three brilliant knockouts last year. His best effort was bookended by a devastating stoppage of Michael Bisping and a flattening of Dan Henderson that was so powerful ‘Hendo’ was left twitching on the mat. That was also the first time the former two-division PRIDE champ had ever been knocked out.
The standout finish came on May 18 at the Arena Jaraguá in Jaraguá do Sul, Brazil in the main event of the UFC’s final outing on the FX network. Rockhold was billed as a great threat to the reinvigorated Phenom. He had shown his ability to take on world class opposition during his Strikeforce run and many expected him to continue his outstanding performances in the UFC. If he was to win he was probably going to take Belfort into deep water and wear the 36-year-old down.
He never had the chance.
Just two-and-a-half minutes into the first round, Belfort spun and threw his heel up and around onto his opponent’s skull. He went down and the traditional Belfort coffin-nail salvo followed to put the last Strikeforce champion out. Belfort has has many memorable stoppages but none like this. Another KO was a very realistic possibility but no-one expected this. Least of all Rockhold. His post-fight comments tell the whole story.
“I didn’t see that one coming,” he said. “I thought I was finding my timing. What can I say? He caught me with a spinning heel kick to the head.”
