With another action-packed month of MMA in the books, MMA Junkie looks at the best knockouts from October 2024: Here are the five nominees, listed in chronological order, and winner of MMA Junkie’s Knockout of the Month award for October.
At the bottom of the post, let us know if we got it right by voting for your choice.
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Nominees
Nominee: Diyar Nurgozhay def. Bartosz Szewczyk at Dana White's Contender Series 74
Kazakhstan’s Diyar Nurgozhay (10-0) knocked out Poland’s Bartosz Szewczyk with a beautiful high kick to stay unbeaten in their light heavyweight bout.
The fight was pretty calm without much, if any, significant offense. The repetitive, uneventful rhythm quickly blew to smithereens when Nurgozhay went high and landed the big knockout blow midway through Round 2.
Nominee: Joaquin Buckley def. Stephen Thompson at UFC 307
All appeared to be going splendid for Stephen Thompson until he ended up face first on the canvas midway through Round 3 of his bout vs. Joaquin Buckley (19-6 MMA, 9-4 UFC).
The party responsible for the violent jumping knockout was Buckley, who crumpled “Wonderboy” Thompson with a jumping right hook that ended the fight at 2:17 of Round 3 to extend his record to 4-0 since dropping to welterweight.
Nominee: Islam Dulatov def. Vanilla Antunes at DWCS 75
Islam Dulatov (11-1) cracked opponent Vanilto Antunes with a brutal standing elbow that folded the Brazilian unconscious and earned him a UFC contract.
Dilator kept his perfect record in tact when he introduced Antunes to his perfect elbow strike to put him down and leave UFC CEO Dana White in awe from his cageside seat.
Nominee: Shara Magomedov def. Armen Petrosyan at UFC 308
When Shara Magomedov (15-0 MMA, 4-0 UFC) faced quite possibly his toughest test to date in Armen Petrosyan, he pulled off an all-time highlight to clinch victory.
“Shara Bullet” floored by Petrosyan with the double backfist TKO in UFC history. He first spun and connected with a left spinning backfist. Then on the recoil, he spun the opposite direction and cracked Petrosyan again, this time with a left spinning backfist.
The winner
The winner: Ilia Topuria def. Max Holloway at UFC 308
Featherweight champion Topuria (16-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC) became the first fighter to knock out Holloway when he put his lights out at the 1:34 mark of Round 3 for the first defense of his belt.
Just like Topuria promised, he pointed to the ground in the middle of the octagon, but Holloway didn’t oblige. Holloway started his attack with a couple of kicks, as Topuria stalked him. Topuria landed a big combination, finding Holloway’s chin with a left hook. Topuria then mixed things up by taking Holloway down, but couldn’t keep him there. Topuria connected with a right, as he continued to head hunt. Holloway landed a nice teep, followed by a one-two down the middle. With seconds remaining in the round, Topuria dropped Holloway with a left hook and tried to take his back.
In Round 2, Holloway pumped out his jab, while Topuria lunged forward with combinations. Topuria continued to find Holloway’s chin, but Holloway would turn away from his punches without allowing him to connect clean. Holloway landed two counter left hooks, followed by a big right. Both men were having success on the feet, but neither able to stun the other. Holloway capped off Round 2 with his signature spinning heel kick to the body.
Holloway started Round 3 off with a body kick, then a push kick to the thigh. Topuria landed a nice left hook, but Holloway stumbled him with a leg kick. Topuria charged at Holloway with a big overhand right which stunned him, then a left hook which sent him crashing to the canvas. A few follow up shots were able to put Holloway out cold.
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