Yahoo Sports UFC Fight Night 75 Results: Uriah Hall Upsets Gegard Mousasi with Stunning TKO
After his appearance on the seventeenth season of The Ultimate Fighter some people predicted that Uriah Hall could be future champion material. After losing his first two fights inside the Octagon people began to question whether Hall could compete on mixed martial arts’ biggest stage.
In the UFC Fight Night 75 co-main event in Japan on Saturday, Hall took on the toughest opponent of his career, former Strikeforce light heavyweight champion and sixth-ranked middleweight Gegard Mousasi, and pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the year.
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Mousasi dominated the opening round, securing an early takedown after catching a push kick. He easily improved his position, mounting Hall twice. Hall gave up his back and the round ended with Mousasi looking to sink in a rear-naked choke.
The second frame couldn’t have gone more different than the first. Mousasi pressed forward and Hall landed a spinning back kick flush to the jaw of the Dutchman. As Mousasi staggered back, Hall leaped in with a flying knee that knocked Mousasi down. He finished the fight seconds later with a series of unanswered strikes just 25 seconds into the round.
“I want to thank God for giving me the most amazing opportunity to do what I love to do. I love to do this,” said Hall following his biggest win. “I know the world still looks at me as this nice guy, but let me tell you something, the best way to get the mean sh*t out of me is to put my back against the wall and you’ll find out.”
The win was Hall’s second TKO-finish in the last seven weeks. He put Oluwale Bamgbose away with punches in his last outing at UFC Fight Night 73 on Aug. 8.
“For me, my karate background, it’s all about timing. I knew that he was going to try to shoot in, so if I spin people will normally duck, or flinch. When I watched him fight, that’s the only thing I saw him do was flinch every time I would throw something,” said the 31-year-old about the fight ending sequence.
“I knew I lost the first round, so I had to time it and capitalize. That’s what I did, my favorite kick, the jump, spinning back kick. Then I followed up with a flying knee. I mean, it’s pretty simple.”
The win was Hall first over a top ten-ranked opponent.
