5 Best finishes from UFC London
There's a lot to unpack from UFC Fight Night: Volkov vs. Aspinall. This card easily fits in amongst the ranks of the most exciting events that the UFC has put on. From the very first fight to the post-fight press, fans were exposed to moments that will live on in the UFC's highlight reel for some time.
England showed out at #UFCLondon on Saturday ๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ ๐
Who had the best performance? https://t.co/Xu5dOyRkVZ
While this card was incredibly stacked, it wouldn't have been half as exciting if not for the energy that the fans in the O2 arena brought. The chants and cheers really gave the athletes something to fight for.
Anything short of "One of the best in history" doesn't do this fight card justice. The finishes were wild, the walkouts were fun and the energy will be very hard to match moving forward. While it's incredibly difficult to sift through and pick which wins were the most fun, here are the 5 best finishes from UFC London.
#5. Ilia Topuria
Ilia Topuria moved up to lightweight and took on a very game and dangerous Jai Herbert. 'El Matador' grabbed a great deal of attention in his last showing that saw him finish Ryan Hall. The Hall fight wasn't the most recent time that fans saw Topuria throwing hands prior to the Herbert meeting. Him and Paddy Pimblett had a fued that stemmed from Twitter and ended with punches thrown earlier on in fight week
#UFCLondonPERFECT right hand by @Topuriailia put him to SLEEP ๐ณ #UFCLondon https://t.co/zIv27aUg0O
Come fight day, Topuria brought that anger into the octagon with him, it seemed. In what was an absolutely ferocious first round, Herbert threw some heat and showed fans that the undefeated Georgian wasn't untouchable. A head kick landed early in the first and had the the 25-year-old in all sorts of trouble.
The second round started and both fighters were ready to pick up where the first round ended. Battling it out didn't last long in the second round, however, as Topuria was able to catch Herbert clean and brutally render him unconscious. This knockout came out of nowhere, as it seemed that the English fighter had Topuria figured out.
Scoring a knockout victory in this fashion against a fighter like Herbert is as impressive as it gets. While Topuria came into hostile territory to take this fight, he gave the fans more to boo about as he called out the aforementioned Paddy Pimblett. Harsh words for the arena's favorite fighter enticed the crowd to express their loyalty to the Scouser.