clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Junior dos Santos KOs Gabriel Gonzaga

Junior dos Santos knocked out Gabriel Gonzaga in the first round of their fight Sunday night at UFC on Versus 1, giving the young heavyweight up-and-comer his most impressive victory yet.

The first minute of the fight was fairly slow paced, but the action got particularly interesting when Gonzaga took dos Santos to the ground just over a minute into the bout. Dos Santos hasn't been tested on the ground yet in his UFC career, but he was easily able to shake Gonzaga off on the ground and get right back up.

Once they did get back up, dos Santos began to look even more comfortable with his trademark punches, and eventually he knocked Gonzaga down with a left hook and then pounced, landing punch after punch on the ground, treating Gonzaga's head like a speed bag until Gonzaga was out cold.

"I'm feeling very good because my training was very hard again," dos Santos said afterward in his rapidly improving English. He then addressed the fans and said, "If you guys like to watch good knockouts, I'm here to give you good knockouts."

It was the best victory of dos Santos's MMA career, and the strongest sign to date that dos Santos is a future heavyweight champion of the world. Dos Santos improved his record to 11-1 while Gonzaga fell to 11-5.

Sign up for the newsletter Sign up for the MMA Fighting Daily Roundup newsletter!

A daily roundup of all your fighting news from MMA Fighting