Max Holloway is no stranger to creating viral moments that end up on a highlight reel.

Perhaps the moment that previously defined him best came back in 2016 when the former featherweight king famously pointed to the ground and invited Ricardo Lamas to throw down with him in an epic brawl to close out their fight at UFC 199. But Holloway’s repeat performance with that same move at UFC 300 might go down as the most stunning finish in the history of the sport.

Stuck in limbo at 145 pounds following a trio of losses to then champion Alexander Volkanovski, Holloway had already bounced back with impressive wins over “The Korean Zombie” Chan Sung Jung and Arnold Allen, but an invitation to compete at the historic UFC 300 card in a “BMF” title fight against Justin Gaethje was an offer he just couldn’t refuse.

The fight required Holloway to return to the lightweight division and that gave him the opportunity to make up for past mistakes after he failed to truly get his body ready to compete at 155 pounds when he faced Dustin Poirier in an interim title bout back in 2019. This time around, Holloway packed on more muscle and size to deal with a human wrecking ball like Gaethje, who is well-known for putting so much damage on his opponents that beating him still ends up feeling like a loss 24 hours later.

Arguably the most important strike in the fight happened in the opening round when Holloway threw a dazzling spinning back kick that slammed into Gaethje’s nose and left him struggling to gasp for air for the next 20 minutes. While Gaethje recovered well enough to put on an entertaining affair, Holloway largely controlled the action with his high-volume striking attack and relentless pressure.

Cruising towards a unanimous decision win, Holloway saw the seconds ticking down on the clock in the fifth and final round and he decided to recreate that scene from UFC 199 when he stood in the center of the octagon, pointed to the ground, and this time welcomed Gaethje to trade bombs with him.

Fists started flying and just before time expired, Holloway uncorked one last punch that blasted Gaethje and sent him crashing face-first to the canvas. Holloway roared and the crowd at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas came unglued.

Even veteran UFC color commentator Joe Rogan struggled to put words together to encapsulate the unbelievable knockout as Holloway floored Gaethje with one second left on the clock

“Oh my goodness!” Rogan said after jumping out of his seat. “Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness! Oh my god! And he called for it!”

In the days, weeks, and months following that jaw-dropping knockout, Holloway admitted it was almost unavoidable to relive that moment over and over again.

“I’ve seen it a lot,” Holloway told MMA Fighting about that finish. “A lot of people are getting out of hand with these [edits] of them. At the end of the day, I saw the normal clip, I saw a bunch of crazy [edits] and I’m just happy I got to be on the right side of that clip.

“I’ve got nothing but love for Justin Gaethje. Shout out to him for taking the fight. Fighting on UFC 300, he had everything to lose and nothing to gain and we went out there and I was able to have that moment on such a big card. Just blessed.”

When the day comes that Holloway finally calls it a career, he’ll assuredly earn almost instantaneous entry into the UFC Hall of Fame but there’s little doubt that his knockout over Gaethje likely serves as the exclamation point to cap off whatever tribute video precedes his eventual acceptance speech. That’s why Holloway’s unreal moment serves as the 2024 Knockout of the Year.