The best and worst from UFC on ESPN: Ngannou vs. Dos Santos

#3 Best: Drew Dober’s cool knockout

Drew Dober's knockout of Polo Reyes was very impressive

I’ll be honest and say I’ve never really been that taken with Drew Dober – he’s been around in the UFC since 2013 and despite having 12 fights in the Octagon before last night with 6 wins to his name, I always found him a bit forgettable outside of the odd fight, like his wild 2018 brawl with Frank Camacho. That changed last night though, as he violently turned out the lights on Polo Reyes in the first round.

Reyes – always a wild fighter – came in looking to brawl, but bit off way more than he could chew as Dober simply landed the harder, cleaner punches, finally ending the fight with a beautiful left hook right to the chin. It was Dober’s first finish since his 2017 knockout of a horribly aging Josh Burkman and was probably the biggest win of his UFC career too.

The likelihood of Dober becoming a genuine contender in the Lightweight division is still low; he still feels a bit athletically limited to me when compared to the very best fighters at 155lbs and he’s still liable to make a fight-ending error – as we saw against Beneil Dariush – but he’s probably earned another step up the ladder with last night’s knockout. Someone like Edson Barboza might work, actually.