Issue 135

December 2015

With a finishing sequence right out of the latest version of Mortal Kombat, Uriah Hall’s second-round TKO victory over Gegard Mousasi at UFC Fight Night 75 in Japan put him into contention to win ‘Knockout of the Year’ at the Eighth Annual World MMA Awards. There are few other fight-finishing salvos that can compare to his awesome jumping spinning back kick, flying knee and ground ’n’ pound combo. But amazingly, while it looked like a piece of inspired improvisation, it began thanks to some cerebral game planning...

“The finish was kind of spectacular,” Hall admitted after the fight. “Mousasi likes to press forward and I was using my jab, but he just kept pressing. I realized from watching his videos that he likes to flinch, and that was the one thing I took from his fight video. I don’t like to study guys too much as it takes away what I’m good at, but I prepared for that.”

The finish came out of nowhere and was a huge shock. Hall was the biggest underdog on the card and lost the first round decisively after spending most of those first five minutes on his back.But the Jamaica-born middleweight, who has now recorded three TKO victories in his last four fights and moved into the middleweight top 10, wasn’t about to take the long trip back from Tokyo to New York with another ‘L’ on his record.

“If I’m coming this far, I’m not coming to lose,” he added. “The first round didn’t go my way – I got my ass kicked. He almost had me towards the end with that rear naked choke and I was just like, ‘What the hell am I going to do?’ I just went back to me: smooth cool and relaxed, and capitalized on it.”

Deep impact

“When I turned to throw the kick I noticed he ducked down. It was just perfect timing. He ducked right into it.”

Second spin

Hall scored the TUF17 ‘Knockout of the Season’ thanks to a spinning hook kick KO of Adam Cella.

Nice and kneesy

“He stumbled and instead of just running in with a punch, his head was just perfect for the flying knee.”

Coffin nails

“I actually didn’t hit him correctly with the knee, it was just the side of the head, so then I hit him with the ground ’n’ pound to finish the fight.”