UFC 142 saw a cautionary tale play out in slow motion. Edson Barboza hit Terry Etim with a spinning back kick that was so clean and violent that it looked like a video game glitch. The moment the strike landed, Etim’s face contorted into shapes previously only found in Picasso’s imagination—lips folding, jaw bending, eyes rolling as if they’d been evicted.

The sound of the impact rippled through Rio, where even the Brazilian fans forgot which language they spoke and settled for a collective ‘OHHHH!’ The silence followed as Etim toppled like a felled tree, was almost as deafening as the strike itself. This strike earned Barboza his reputation as a highlight-reel factory, a human cheat code capable of ending careers with a powerful flick of his foot. To this day, the image of Etim’s face mid-collapse remains a masterpiece in the art of destruction—perfectly timed, impossibly brutal, and forever etched into the UFC archives. 

January 14, 2012

UFC 142, HSBC Arena, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil