One-sided fights, aka squash matches, have always been part of MMA, ever since the inception of UFC 1 back in 1993, basically.
Sometimes they’re set up to be that way; if a promotion is looking to bring a hot prospect along slowly by matching them with a journeyman, for instance, or if they book a dominant champion to defend against a “contender of the month” type of fighter. Other times they simply happen. The promoter books a fight thinking the fighters are evenly matched and well, it doesn't turn out that way at all.
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While squashes were very common in the Japanese promotions (PRIDE, DREAM, Hero’s) and also in the Scott Coker-headed organisations (StrikeForce and Bellator), with the UFC’s way of booking, under the Zuffa era at least, squashes were always relatively rare, as matchmakers Joe Silva and Sean Shelby always attempted to book even fights in order to find the best of the best.
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Sometimes, though, even in the UFC, brutal squashes did occur. Naturally, a top five would be impossible to choose but here are five of my favourites.
#1 Georges St-Pierre vs. Jay Hieron – UFC 48: Payback – 06/19/04
While we all know what GSP went on to do – for my money he’s the greatest fighter in the short history of MMA – back in mid-2004 when this fight took place, he was simply a rising prospect, who had come into the UFC off the back of some impressive wins in Canada’s TKO organisation.
He’d debuted against fellow prospect Karo Parisyan and despite finding himself in a couple of sticky situations, kimuras mainly, he’d used his takedowns and ground-and-pound to grind out a win.
Initially, St-Pierre was matched with newcomer Jason ‘Mayhem’ Miller here but when Mayhem found himself in some legal hot water, wrestler-boxer Hieron was brought in following a 4-0 record on the regional scene.
Training out of Marc Laimon’s Cobra Kai gym, Hieron was a sparring partner of then-UFC star Phil Baroni and while he wasn’t as established as St-Pierre, it was expected that he’d provide a stern test for the young Canadian, particularly due to his strong wrestling background, as St-Pierre himself was known more as a grappler.
On this night GSP didn’t end up having to use his grappling. After stuffing an early takedown attempt and throwing some flashy kicks that missed, GSP levelled Hieron with a right hand-left hook combination.
The debutant popped back up to his feet and shot for another takedown, but again GSP easily stuffed it and then decked Hieron with a right hand that seemed to have him out cold for a second. Really, the referee should’ve stepped in there, but for some reason he let it go, allowing Hieron to shoot for another unsuccessful takedown.
GSP followed that with a three-punch combo – left-right-left – and then destroyed ‘Thoroughbred’ with a series of violent elbows on the ground.
Not only was this a brutal squash match – the referee could’ve stopped it twice before he actually did, and really shouldn’t have let Hieron take the number of elbows that he did – but it signified that St-Pierre was for real, not just a hot prospect but a genuine title contender. You could easily argue in fact that it’s still the most violent finish in his career.
#2 Anderson Silva vs. Rich Franklin – UFC 64: Unstoppable – 10/14/06
In October 2006, Rich Franklin was widely recognised not only as the best 185lbs fighter in the world and the UFC champion but also as one of the pound-for-pound best fighters on the planet too.
He’d been utterly dominant in every one of his UFC fights to this point, crushing Evan Tanner for the title in June 2005, and his most recent appearance had been a one-sided beatdown of top contender David Loiseau. Franklin had picked up a couple of injuries in that fight – a broken hand and a broken ankle – but was apparently healthy coming into this, his third title defence.
Anderson Silva meanwhile, for all his clear talents, had only one UFC fight, his now-legendary knockout of Chris Leben.
Despite looking ultra impressive against Leben, most analysts recognised that Leben was a limited fighter and while Silva had surprised people by knocking him out – breaking Leben’s iron chin – he was only a few fights removed from a loss to Ryo Chonan, who by this stage had been exposed as not quite the top fighter Japanese fans thought he was.
I remember watching this one at the time and wondering whether something was wrong with Franklin upon his entrance. He was sporting a black eye, but that didn’t tend to matter as everyone knew Rich trained hard. It was more his demeanour – against Loiseau, he’d come out looking pumped, shadow-boxing and snarling, while against Silva he seemed almost shrunken away like he was deep in thought.
After Bruce Buffer’s announcements and a touch of gloves, Silva made the sign of the cross; Franklin responded with a brief prayer as if Silva was in his head and he was begging God to be on his side, not the Brazilian’s. If that were the case, then God certainly wasn’t listening to Rich Franklin.
After a brief feeling-out process, Silva grabbed a plum clinch, and that’s where the massacre began. He landed a couple of knees to the body and when Franklin attempted to break the clinch, Silva overpowered him violently, practically throwing him into the fence from the plum.
Nobody had done that to Franklin before as he’d always been the bigger, stronger fighter at 185lbs. More knees to the body followed before one landed to the head, staggering Franklin. Silva closed in and grabbed the plum again and we got a horrifying visual – Franklin staring into Silva’s eyes as if pleading for him to stop.
Anderson didn’t stop, instead, he landed more knees; one shattered the champion’s nose and the other put him down and out. It was an execution.
This was one of the greatest squashes in UFC history as it was such a shock – going in Silva was seen as a tough test for Franklin but wasn’t expected to win, not least in such devastating fashion.
This was, of course, the beginning of Silva’s run of domination in the UFC – he defended the Middleweight title a further ten times – and while Franklin had further success in the UFC, he never reached the heights that he did before this fight. This remains Franklin’s most violent defeat and one of Silva’s nastiest finishes.
#3 Gabriel Gonzaga vs. Josh Hendricks – UFC 91: Couture vs. Lesnar – 11/15/08
From a pair of surprising squashes to one that was totally expected, at least by yours truly. Gonzaga was coming off another squash win over Tito Ortiz’s buddy Justin McCully, but before that, he’d been finished violently by both Randy Couture and Fabricio Werdum. Before that though was his now-legendary head kick knockout of Mirko Cro Cop.
Hendricks was a newcomer to the UFC on a ten-fight win streak. Impressive, sure, but none of his opponents came close to being on the level of Gonzaga and while I hadn’t seen any of Hendricks’s wins, I had seen his last loss – a knockout at the hands of TUF 2’s Tom Murphy, who hadn’t exactly set the world on fire during TUF.
Hendricks was talking a good game, mentioning how Gonzaga had seemed to fold against Couture and Werdum, but he was no Randy Couture.
After some early exchanges and feeler strikes, Gonzaga landed a crushing right hand that dropped Hendricks hard, and really, the fight should’ve been over from there. If the referee had stepped in, then the fight probably wouldn’t have been such a memorable squash, to be honest.
Instead, Steve Mazzagatti, who is notorious for stopping fights late and pulling off various gaffes in the cage, stood and watched as Gonzaga delivered another hard right hand to the downed Hendricks. This time ‘Napao’ even looked at the Mazz as if expecting him to step in.
Still, he didn’t, and so Gonzaga landed a third shot that stiffened Hendricks up like he’d been shot. Mercifully, it was over.
This one to me is a classic squash because of the brutality of the finish, the lateness of the refereeing job from the Mazz, and also because it showed that a ten-fight win streak on the regional scene – unless it’s in a Bellator or WSOF-level promotion – doesn’t mean much when you’re in with a UFC monster like Gabriel Gonzaga.
#4 Anthony Johnson vs. Yoshiyuki Yoshida – UFC 104: Machida vs. Shogun – 10/24/09
On paper, this wasn’t a squash if you looked at both fighters’ records. During his UFC tenure, Yoshida hadn’t quite lived up to his pre-UFC record – he’d beaten former Shooto champion Akira Kikuchi and future UFC title challenger Dan Hardy in the Cage Force promotion – but his only loss at this stage was to Josh Koscheck.
The problem for Yoshida, however, was all about the weight. The Japanese fighter was never the biggest 170lber himself but he wasn’t tiny or soft; just your standard sized Welterweight really, probably cutting from around 180lbs or so.
Johnson meanwhile came in at 176lbs – five pounds over the Welterweight limit – but he was clearly cutting a monstrous amount of weight to even get to that. By the time the two men stepped into the Octagon, Yoshida looked to be around 180lbs. Johnson appeared to be around 200lbs, probably two weight classes above his Japanese foe.
Yoshida looked physically outmatched and while physicality isn’t always key in MMA when you’re up against a heavy hitter like Anthony Rumble Johnson, being outsized doesn’t help. Sure enough, Rumble tagged Yoshida in the very first exchange, wobbling the Japanese veteran, and from there he swiftly followed with an absolutely brutal right hand that sent Yoshida down and out.
Referee Steve Mazzagatti – in one of his best-ever performances for my money – stepped in before Johnson could follow up, as Yoshida while not unconscious clearly couldn’t continue.
There’s a reason that people say when all skills are equal, a good big man will beat a good little man. There’s also a reason that modern MMA uses strict weight classes for the most part and punishes fighters – like Johnson here – who miss weight with fines. Watch this fight and you’ll see those reasons firmly in action. This was a cruelly violent finish.
#5 Ronda Rousey vs. Alexis Davis – UFC 175: Weidman vs. Machida – 07/05/14
This one was a squash for so many reasons. The champion, Rousey, was on a massive roll although she hadn’t reached the stardom she would in 2015, and she was beginning to gain a Mike Tyson-esque aura of destroying all of her opponents in quick fashion.
Only five months before this, she’d taken out top contender Sara McMann in the first round. The challenger, Davis, was on a nice win streak (five fights, three in the UFC) but realistically didn’t seem to have the skills to challenge Ronda and with the true top contender (Cat Zingano) on the shelf with a knee injury, she felt like a “challenger of the month” more than anything else.
During the entrances and ring introductions, Davis looked in awe of Rousey; not quite intimidated by her, but like she wasn’t really sure if she could win. If she really did feel that way and I’m not looking too far into it, then she had good reason to.
The fight began and Rousey strode out into the centre of the cage and drew Davis into an exchange of punches. A stiff right hand had Davis hurt immediately and from there Rousey hit her with a knee to the gut and then delivered a beautiful judo throw, tossing the challenger onto her back right into scarf control position.
A series of clean right hands to the face followed and separated Davis from her consciousness, causing referee Yves Lavigne to step in at just sixteen seconds.
This was a violent finish that reminded me massively of another squash match in the UFC – namely Tito Ortiz’s title defence against Evan Tanner in 2001. Like Davis, Tanner had seemed overawed coming in and like Rousey, Tito took full advantage, slamming Tanner unconscious in the first round.
While Rousey’s reputation has since plummeted due to her own one-sided losses at the hands of Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes, there’s a reason that she was widely recognised as one of the most fearsome fighters in all of MMA before the Holly Holm fight, and it’s because of fights like this one.
While her subsequent win over Cat Zingano was more impressive due to the calibre of opponent, and her earlier win over Miesha Tate was a more entertaining fight, this was definitely her most devastating win and one of the most memorable squash matches in UFC history.
Got any more squash matches you can remember from the UFC? There’s plenty, after all! Talk about them below!
Until next time....
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