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Unlike its close cousin pro-wrestling, the UFC and its fights are certainly not pre-determined. However, that hasn’t stopped fate seemingly intervening in the promotion and the fortunes of its fighters in strange ways at times.
Over the years we’ve seen some genuinely ironic moments in the UFC’s octagon, some of which left fans with truly unforgettable memories. Often, these ironic moments led to outspoken fighters getting a taste of their own medicine. At other times, they happened at the expense of the promotion itself.
Here are five of the most ironic moments in UFC history.
#5. Event subtitled Knockout features no knockout finishes (UFC 76)
From its inception in 1993 through to around 2011, each major UFC pay-per-view featured a catchy subtitle.
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Sometimes, these subtitles referred to a fight or multiple fights on the card – UFC 40, for instance, was subtitled Vendetta in reference to Tito Ortiz’s feud with Ken Shamrock. Often, they were chosen seemingly at random.
September 2007’s UFC 76 was unimaginatively subtitled Knockout. While it didn’t outright refer to any of the event’s fights, it seemed fitting given that the card featured a number of deadly strikers, including Chuck Liddell, Keith Jardine, Shogun Rua, Lyoto Machida and Anthony Johnson.
Bizarrely, though, fate appeared to be laughing at the promotion, as none of the event’s nine bouts ended in a knockout. None of them even ended via TKO. Even more bizarrely, most of the fights didn’t even feature a knockdown.
The event featured just three finishes, all via submission. While a number of the fights were hugely memorable overall, particularly Forrest Griffin’s crazy tapout win over PRIDE legend Shogun, the fact that none of them ended via strikes was outright bizarre.
In fact, UFC 76 is the only major event put on by the promotion to feature no knockouts, making that subtitle ridiculously ironic in hindsight.
#4. Kamaru Usman breaks Colby Covington’s jaw (UFC 245)
Prior to his welterweight title clash with champion Kamaru Usman at UFC 245, Colby Covington talked an insane amount of trash. In fact, it could be argued that ‘Chaos’ went further than even the likes of Chael Sonnen, Conor McGregor and Tito Ortiz did on the microphone.
Covington hit out at Usman in every way possible, using insults that veered worryingly towards outright racism at times. Sure, it turned the challenger into a major heel with the fans, but ‘Chaos’ didn’t seem to care – even stating that he’d “rather have hate than love.”
Unfortunately, if his persona really was an act – and to be frank, it was difficult to tell – then nobody had informed Usman. ‘The Nigerian Nightmare’ took every insult personally and seemed determined to shut Covington up for good.
The two men faced off in what turned out to be a classic slugfest, with both fighters landing some heavy shots across five rounds, but with seconds ticking away on the clock, it was the champion who went for the kill.
Usman landed a crushing right hand that dropped Covington, and when he somehow got to his feet, he was sent crashing down for a second time and didn’t get back up.
‘The Nigerian Nightmare’ had defended his title against his bitter rival successfully, but the ironic thing was that Usman’s final punches had not only finished ‘Chaos’, but they’d also broken his jaw. That ensured that he couldn’t even cut a post-fight interview, shutting him up for a time at least.
#3. The inaugural ‘BMF’ title bout ends with a doctor’s stoppage (UFC 244)
When it was announced that Nate Diaz and Jorge Masvidal would be battling for a title in the headline bout of UFC 244, fans were initially bewildered.
That was until they realized that the two welterweights weren’t fighting for a regular title. Instead, Dana White and company had decided to introduce the first-ever ‘BMF’ belt, with the acronym standing for ‘Bad Motherf*cker’. If any fighters fitted that bill, it was Diaz and Masvidal.
The hype for the clash was off the charts, with Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson even arriving in Madison Square Garden to bring the newly-minted title belt to the octagon. Unfortunately, despite the fight being an entertaining one, it ended in painfully ironic fashion.
With ‘Gamebred’ dominating the bout, the third round saw Diaz suffer a bad cut over his right eye. It quickly became clear that he was struggling to see. Once the round ended, the cageside doctor checked the Stockton-based fighter and immediately called the fight off.
Unsurprisingly, the New York crowd were furious, but despite being advertised as something different, at the end of the day the clash was a regular UFC bout, ‘BMF’ title be damned.
Given how things had been advertised, for Masvidal to claim his title via doctor’s stoppage was wickedly ironic.
#2. Chris Weidman snaps his leg in his fight with Uriah Hall (UFC 261)
When Chris Weidman dethroned legendary UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva in the summer of 2013, it came as no surprise that the promotion immediately booked a rematch.
Remarkably, the result of that rematch was even more stunning than Weidman’s initial knockout of ‘The Spider’. When Silva threw a leg kick in the second round, ‘The All-American’ checked it and the legendary Brazilian’s leg snapped like a twig, ending the bout in an instant.
It was one of the worst injuries ever seen in the octagon, with only a similar leg break suffered by Corey Hill five years prior coming close.
Given the rarity of Silva’s injury, few fans expected to see anything like it ever again. Indeed, the years quickly ticked away with nothing similar happening. That was, ironically, until Weidman faced off with Uriah Hall at UFC 261, nearly a decade later.
Just seconds into the fight, ‘The All-American’ threw a leg kick at his foe. Unbelievably, just like Silva, he fell to the ground a moment later, his leg utterly shattered after just 17 seconds.
For Weidman to suffer the exact same injury as Silva was a truly horrifying quirk of fate that nobody could’ve seen coming. The only plus to the whole thing was that ‘The Spider’ immediately reached out in support of his old rival, showing true class to the man who essentially ended his top level career.
#1. Gabriel Gonzaga knocks out Mirko Cro Cop with a head kick (UFC 70)
When PRIDE superstar Mirko Cro Cop was signed by the UFC in early 2007 to bolster what many fans believed to be a weak heavyweight division, it felt like only a matter of time before he claimed gold in the octagon.
Sure enough, in just his second bout with the promotion, he found himself matched with Gabriel Gonzaga, with the winner set for a title shot against then-champion Randy Couture.
Most fans figured that this would finally be the fight that they’d get to see Cro Cop unleash his infamous head kick – the shot he’d used to turn out the lights on numerous opponents in the PRIDE ring.
Indeed, the fight between Cro Cop and ‘Napao’ did end with a violent head kick – it just didn’t happen quite how most had imagined it to.
Cro Cop’s octagon debut against Eddie Sanchez had been a strange one, as he’d taken his time to get going before stopping ‘The Manic Hispanic’.
Many fans figured that it was simply a case of him adjusting to the different rules of the UFC, as well as the octagon itself. But when Gonzaga took him down easily in the early going of their bout, it was clear something else was up.
After Gonzaga landed a series of elbows to the PRIDE star’s head, referee Herb Dean decided to call the bout back up to the feet with seconds remaining in the round.
The fans immediately lit up, thinking Cro Cop was about to deliver the goods. Instead, ‘Napao’ was the fighter who threw a perfectly-timed head kick that landed cleanly, sending the Croatian crashing to the ground, his lights instantly switched off.
Ironically, not only had Cro Cop been felled by his own favorite strike, but it was also a worse knockout than any of the ones he’d dished out himself. His career never truly recovered, and after one more fight, he washed out of the UFC as one of the promotion’s biggest-ever busts.
