Francis Ngannou made short work of returning former champion Cain Velasquez in the main event of UFC On ESPN 1 tonight, though it seemed that the knockout finish had more to do with a knee injury than clean punches.
Round One:
The heavyweight main event of the evening is underway on ESPN.
Body kick from Velasquez to start. He tries for a head kick and misses.
Velasquez moving in for a takedown and gets clipped with punches as he does so. As he looks to continue his knee suddenly gives out on him and he falls to the mat grimacing in pain.
Ngannou gratefully capitalizes on that and blasts the grounded Velasquez with a few heavy punches as he covers up, and that’s it, it’s all over already with only 26 seconds on the clock!
Velasquez points to his knee afterwards, indicating it was an injury that took him out of the fight and then yells in frustration, and this is now the second time in his career that he’s been stopped quickly on a major network debut (his KO loss to Junior dos Santos at UFC On FOX 1 being the other).
