Jorge Masvidal, Belal Muhammad, Ariel Helwani, and others react as Manel Kape secures stellar KO recovering from visibly painful low blow
Manel Kape's highly impressive performance at UFC Tampa left many in the MMA community buzzing. 'Starboy' locked horns against Bruno Gustavo da Silva in a flyweight encounter on December 14. The fight took place on the main card of the event, which was held at the Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida.
Kape faced adversity in the fight as he was on the receiving end of multiple low blows from Silva. A point was deducted from the Brazilian for the illegal strike.
Kape managed to recover from the low blows and then proceeded to finish the fight via a third-round knockout.
Check out Manel Kape's knockout victory below:
Several prominent names in the MMA world took notice of Kape's performance and shared their reactions to it in the comments section.
Former 'BMF' title holder Jorge Masvidal chimed in on Kape's performance on X.
"Scary, fast and mean."
UFC welterweight king Belal Muhammad argued that 'Starboy' was deserving of a title shot after his victory at UFC Tampa.
"That was a title shot worthy perofrmance."
Terrance McKinney commented on how the 31-year-old overcame adversity to get his hand raised in the fight.
"Manel Kape got kicked in the n*ts and then stood up and performed like Ali in the matrix. He's different for real."
In his post-fight interview, Kape hurled insults at Kai Kara-France and Israel Adesanya and proceeded to call out Alexandre Pantoja.
Journalist Ariel Helwani drew parallels between Kape's interview and the iconic post-fight interview of Nate Diaz, who called out Conor McGregor after defeating Michael Johnson in December 2015.
"That was the flyweight version of the Diaz promo (same state + final show of the year) on Fox after the Johnson win. 9 years ago."
Check out a compilation of some of the reactions below:
