UFC Paris video: Roman Kopylov faceplants Alessio Di Chirico with blistering knockout in the third round

Roman Kopylov finally picked up his first win inside the octagon with a blistering third-round knockout to finish Alessio Di Chirico at UFC Paris.

It was a constant barrage of body kicks that set up the finish as Kopylov was just hammering Di Chirico to the midsection throughout the fight. Once Di Chirico had to start defending his body, Kopylov unleashed a huge combination with his punches that ended with the Italian fighter slumped face first on the canvas.

The official stoppage came at 1:09 in the third round.

“First round, everything was going well, the second round, something started to fail,” Kopylov explained. “I only had one choice to take the fight in the third round. I had to finish to win. We found a way.”

Di Chirico and Kopylov were throwing serious heavy leather as the middleweights were both trying to score a knockout before the opening round expired. Kopylov was displaying superior speed on the feet as he was throwing lightning quick punches and kicks while Di Chirico was really loading up with one strike at a time in return.

Di Chirico finally connected with a pair of stiff straight right hands but Kopylov was quick to fire back with a blistering combination of his own. That led to a takedown attempt from Di Chirico as he sought to slow down the speedy Kopylov, who was able to shrug off his attempts before resetting in the center of the cage.

While Di Chirico was still marching forward, Kopylov was doing a great job countering his aggressiveness as he also hammered his opponent with a body kick that reverberated throughout the arena. Kopylov continued snapping off those kicks until it set up the combination that allowed him to push forward with several stinging punches — with the last two putting Di Chirico down and out on the canvas.

After dropping back-to-back fights to start his UFC career, Kopylov got a much needed win on Saturday while also picking up an impressive knockout over an experienced opponent like Di Chirico in his best performance to date.