Sherdog.com’s 2015 Knockout of the Year

3. Uriah Hall vs. Gegard Mousasi
UFC Fight Night ‘Barnett vs. Nelson’
Saturday, Sept. 26
Saitama Super Arena | Saitama, Japan
When Uriah Hall suddenly morphed from a man into a character from “Street Fighter,” I was completely convinced in that moment that he would stroll into the New Year with both the 2015 “Knockout of the Year” and the 2015 “Upset of the Year.” As you we now know, I was incorrect, but that should do nothing to lessen the luster of Hall’s mind-blowing knockout of Gegard Mousasi, a pantheon-level finish that would have taken top billing in two categories most other years.

The 31-year-old Hall is continuously viewed as a work in progress, an enigmatic individual whose athletic talents far outstrip his fight tactics and strategy. It creates a constant dialogue of whether or not he will be able to pull off a spinning back kick destruction of a foe like he did to Adam Cella on “The Ultimate Fighter 17” or if he will fold under late pressure. That die had already been cast long before he decided to step in for an injured Roan Carneiro on six weeks’ notice to fight Mousasi in Japan. Considering he was on short notice, had already fought three times in nine months and was facing an infinitely more well-rounded and defensively gifted fighter like Mousasi, the +300 to +400 underdog lines on Hall seemed almost too generous, tempered only by the fleeting idea that maybe, somehow, if all the stars in the universe lined up, he could land the greatest strike of his life on Mousasi. Those bookmakers were smart to temper that line. With that said, no one could have imagined what Hall had in store.

Before Hall could author violent history, he had to soldier through adversity. The first round was an even more pronounced version of what most folks expected going into the bout: one-way traffic for Mousasi. The former Dream and Strikeforce champion got Hall down, took dominant positions with ease, pounded him liberally and nearly choked him out on more than one occasion. Even with his high-octane offensive arsenal, it seemed hard to believe that Hall, of all fighters, was going to overcome a 10-8 round, especially against a fighter with the technique and craft of Mousasi.

However, this is MMA, where fighters often stand up off their stool round after round under immense punishment, as trainers, referees and doctors all delusionally believe they could just be one shot away, where we are constantly told “anything can happen.” That entire philosophy, right or wrong, is crystallized by moments like this.

Onlookers did not even have moment to settle in and prepare for what was about to happen. Just seconds into round two, Mousasi backed Hall down and looked to restart the ass kicking of round one. Hall feinted, Mousasi changed levels and … oh my God, what happened?

Hall spun around 360 degrees, unloading a flying, spinning back kick right out of a pirouette, smashing his right foot straight into Mousasi’s jaw. It is a testament to Mousasi’s chin and resilience that this blow, probably the single greatest MMA strike of 2015, did not flatline him then and there. Somehow, Mousasi was still conscious enough to stumble backward on uneasy legs, which only served to turn his chin into a target for a perfectly aimed flying knee from Hall. Again, somehow, this was not enough, as Mousasi still clung to a feeble single-leg attempt after being knocked down. Hall did not squander the moment, forcing Mousasi’s head to the mat with his left hand and ripping into his unresponsive face with rights until referee Greg Kleynjans intervened. The official time was just 25 seconds of the second round.

A major-league upset created by a flying spinning back kick-flying knee-chaingun punching combination? It was like seeing a shooting star, then seeing it collide with another shooting star in an explosion of cosmic beauty. It was a finishing sequence out of a fighting video game, as if some supernatural force grabbed the joystick controlling Hall and button-mashed him into the history books.

It is hard to imagine Hall ever going on to contend for the UFC middleweight title, and in likelihood, his triumph over Mousasi may well represent the high watermark for his MMA career. However, this was not a spinning wheel kick on Cella on a reality show; this was an insane multi-pronged assault on a perennially outstanding technician. Hall’s handiwork against Mousasi will keep him under UFC employ barring any extraordinary circumstances, and so it should. Anytime Hall fights, even if we do not quite believe it will happen, we will look to the sky just to see if those stars might somehow fall into alignment again.

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