13 Faceplant knockouts in MMA that are painful to watch

#7 Nick Diaz vs Robbie Lawler

It is singular that Nick Diaz and Robbie Lawler are still not only competing at the highest levels of the sport, but also that their stocks are blue chip. Both were throwing leather at an age when most did not know in which direction they wanted their lives to progress.

At UFC 47, Lawler, 22 and Diaz, 21 stared at each other from across the octagon. The ten fights each had under his belt had already bred the trademark behaviour that would make crowds explode for years to come – Lawler’s masochistic, is-that-all-you-got smile every time he got struck and Diaz’s derision and gall.

Neither pulled his punches in the first round, staggering the other and when the bell ushered in the second, both picked up where they left off. The crowd was awash with shock and thrill when Diaz, the BJJ prodigy, toppled the brawling Lawler with a right jab that encapsulated Newton’s third law of motion.

To this day, the act marks one of two times that Lawler has lost by knockout and Diaz has won by the same device.