5 one-hit wonders in the UFC

#5 Houston Alexander

Houston Alexander rocketed to the top of the UFC but fell swiftly back down

You could probably make an argument for Houston actually being a two-hit wonder, but his rocket-like rise and subsequent and sudden fall definitely puts him on this list. At 6-1 and with no impressive names on his record, it was a surprise when he was signed to fight Keith Jardine – who had just beaten Forrest Griffin and broken into title contention for the first time – at UFC 71. He certainly wasn’t supposed to actually win.

But win he did and it was in brutal fashion, too. After absorbing an early knockdown, Alexander came roaring back to absolutely smash Jardine with punches en route to a first-round TKO. A star was born, all in just 48 seconds. A TKO win over Alessio Sakara – in a minute – followed and it seemed like the UFC had a new superstar at 205lbs. A one-sided loss to Thiago Silva just two months later put paid to that, and from there the hype train was derailed for good.

Alexander was knocked out by James Irvin and then submitted by Eric Schafer in his next two fights to erase any thought of him being a genuine title contender as some had first believed, and his final UFC fight – an appalling loss to a post-TUF Kimbo Slice – made him into a punchline more than anything else.

A decade on, Alexander remains perhaps one of the finest examples of the unpredictability of MMA, and the possibility that you can be a superstar one day, and a washed-up loser the next, all in the space of one or two knockouts.

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