Demetrious Johnson, one of the most dominant champions in the history of mixed martial arts, suffered a crushing defeat against Adriano Moraes on Wednesday during an important night for the Championship One in Asia.
The One Championship event took place in Singapore and was broadcast live on TNT, which hosted the company’s first live broadcast on American television.
Johnson (30-3-1), widely regarded as one of the greatest fighters of all time, was an obvious candidate. As a UFC flyweight champion, he set the record for consecutive title defense, defending the belt 11 times from 2013 to 2018.
But it was Moraes (19-3) who took the chance and knocked Johnson out with a bad knee injury at 2 minutes, 24 seconds from the second round to retain his flyweight title. The knee would have been illegal under MMA rules in the US as Johnson was in a grounded position when he was hit, but the strikes are allowed under the One Championship banner in Asia.
“I have to go back home and watch the fight, see when I made mistakes,” said Johnson, 34, who had never been knocked out before Wednesday. “Adriano is very tall, big. It was hard to get to him. It’s part of the game. You stay in this game long enough, it’s probably going to happen at some point, right?”
Moraes, from Brazil, waited years for the opportunity to fight Johnson. Although the battle for the flyweight title was fought, it was actually fought for £ 135, as One Championship’s weight classes were changed from those in the US to reduce the weight. Moraes first won a title in One Championship in 2014. He lost the band in 2015, before regaining the undisputed title in 2017.
Moraes’ height and reach advantage gave Johnson problems early on. Although there was not much offense in the opening round, it was clear that Johnson had a difficult time comparing his diverse opponent, and he struggled to fit Moraes’ physicality to the ground. Moraes almost landed a standing knee in the second round, just moments before a right-handed top cut dropped Johnson, and then the last knee blow left him cold.
One championship has some more live events planned on TNT this month, though Wednesday’s ticket offered by far the best series in terms of name recognition in the US.
Alvarez-Lapicus ends in quick disqualification
In addition to the main event for flyweight, One Championship promoted a lightweight fight between former Bellator MMA and UFC champion Eddie Alvarez and lightweight Iuri Lapicus, number 2. The co-function had an unfortunate end, in which Alvarez (30-8) was disqualified in the first round due to blows to the back of the head.
Alvarez, of Pennsylvania, recorded an early removal and trapped Lapicus’ legs beneath him along the fence. When Alvarez starts throwing wide right hand from above, Lapicus turns his head towards the fence and exposes the back of his head. Alvarez continued to fire shots until Lapicus reacted badly to one of them and fell back to the canvas.
The action was interrupted because the referee inflicted an illegal blow and separated the fighters from each other. Alvarez immediately disputed the legality of the blows, but later only expressed concern about Lapicus’ health.
Iuri turned his head the other way, and the referee warned me, ‘Back of the head! “,” Alvarez said. ‘As you can see, I take my head and push his head to the side where the blows are coming from. Plus, I thought as long as I hit the ear, I thought it’s legal. make is good. I hope Iuri is completely fine. This game is so dangerous, all I care about is that everyone stays safe. “
If Alvarez had won the fight, he would have been one step closer to competing for One’s lightweight championship. Similarly, he suffered his third defeat in four battles.