WEC veteran Steve Ramirez received the referee's go-ahead, took four steps forward and swung an overhand right. And in all of three seconds, he staked claim for what could be the fastest knockout in MMA history.Ramirez (7-5) recorded the knockout over Darvin Wattree at a local PureCombat event on July 25 in Visalia, Calif. A fan uploaded the fight the next day, and at the time of this publication, the video (after the jump) has drawn over 250,000 views.
Ramirez spoke to FanHouse earlier this week about the amazing feat and how it feels to be the latest MMA viral hit.
FanHouse: What's your reaction to how this video has been spreading?
It's kinda crazy. I haven't really connected with it cause I don't know, one punches changes my whole outlook on MMA. It was my first knockout and I really, really wanted to knock someone out, not because I'm a d--khead or anything like that, but because I want one on my record. I aimed for his head, I punched as hard as I could. I was hoping to knock him out and it happened. I don't know if you can call that lucky but I hope I can get lucky for every one of my other fights from now on.
What went through your mind when you scored the knockout?
First thing I thought was: No way. (Laughs.) I'll be honest, I looked down at him and I was like "he's not getting up." And I was like "no way that happened" cause I was still in destruction mode, and then all of a sudden it just clicked, and you can see it the moment in the video. I hit him and I'm looking at him on the ground and I want to hit him some more and then I realize, "hey, he's not up. He's out!" And I looked around and the energy just hit me and there was this real extreme rush. It's great man. I can't explain it. I've never knocked anyone out before so it was new to me.
When did you find out that the knockout happened to be a record?
After every fight I find my parents and I ran up there and one of my buddies said he just googled it and the previous record was 4 seconds. I think there've been knockouts in like Muay Thai or boxing that happened even faster than that, but it was definitely close for a cage record. Some of my friends, we were talking [expletive] here at a party, and they broke out the stopwatch, and it looks like it's under three. It could be under three, but we'll never know – how can I lobby to get that? [The record] will never change, it's stuck at 3 seconds, but once I found out, again, I was just happy to get the win.
There's some discussion about the glove touch. You reach out at first but when the referee asked you to touch again, you decided against it.
[The referee] asked me, "are you okay?" cause I had this intense look on my face. One of my favorite fighters of all time was Olaf Alfonso and he had this real intense scowl almost and I try to mimic that every fight. I try to get myself in that zone, that level of intensity. [My opponent] wants to hug and sing "Cumbaya" and all that [expletive], we can do that afterwards. But I'm a martial artist first of all and that guy's a Tae Kwon Do black belt and no matter what, he outranks me. I have respect for him. I just knew that he was going to come in there and tear my head off, if I give him the chance. So tried to focus myself for war and I expected a 15-minute all balls out [fight]. So I reached out there and touched gloves, and man, he wanted to touch gloves again! And I was like, "Dude, once is enough man!" It's hard to explain. It's crazy but I try to be a sportsman about it.
So what's next for you?
I got one more fight in my PureCombat contract, and after that I'm licensed for the rest of the year, and I don't know exactly where [I'll fight next], but I heard Gladiator Challenge is coming to town, and it's always great to fight in front of my friends. And I'll be training with Mike [Cook]. Hopefully he's going to fight on the Gina Carano card. I understand there was a last-minute pull out at Strikeforce, so we might check that out. Just training. Actually I'm meeting Mike here in about an hour, go get our cardio on, grab some lunch, maybe hit some laps on the pool. I know, it's rough. Life is rough right about now. (Laughs.)
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