Kevin Holland appeared to be flash KO’d by a clash of heads during his fight with Kyle Daukaus tonight at UFC Fight Night 193, only for the fight to continue until he was briefly choked unconscious soon afterwards, but the bizarre spectacle didn’t end there as the fight was then declared a no-contest minutes later due to the head clash!
Round One:
Holland with a calf kick to start. Daukaus with hooks and wades into his first takedown attempt against the cage. Holland able to stay upright for now. Daukaus pulls him away from the cage, but Holland shows good balance to stay on his feet.
Holland with his trademark talking, telling DC that his takedown defense has improved. However, then Daukaus does bring him down, but only for a moment.
Daukaus still trying to work for a takedown, but Holland is able to stay on his feet and turns into the clinch.
Holland finally manages to get back to striking range. Unfortunately as they look to strike there’s a huge clash of heads and Holland gets by far the worse of it and seems to be flash KO’d, practically face-planting onto the canvas, but comes back immediately and continues to fight on afterwards and gets back to his feet.
Tough break for Holland and now Daukaus is all over him on the feet, getting to Holland’s back and then sinks in a rear-naked choke. It’s in tight and with Holland already disorientated he’s not getting out of this. He tries to gut it out and then taps out, before then falling to the mat, unconscious momentarily again!
During the fight-ending sequence ref Dan Miragliotta was signalling that he’d want to review footage of the potential clash of heads, and so there’s a long period afterwards as he and the other cage-side officials watch what occurred and debate what should happen next.
It’s Miragliotta’s call to make and ultimately he declares the fight a no-contest at 3.43mins of the first round due to the clash of heads. A highly unusual outcome then and Daukaus will no doubt be gutted his submission finish won’t remain on his record, while Holland will be relieved to have avoided his third loss in a row, but disappointed to have suffered that flash knockout.
One thing’s for sure though, once Holland has recovered these two will have to run this fight back.
