Anderson Silva scored famous front kick KO on stacked UFC 126 card featuring Jon Jones and Demetrious Johnson
12/29/2024 08:37 AM
At UFC 126 in 2011, Anderson Silva defended his middleweight title against Vitor Belfort in the main event, scoring a thunderous front kick KO.
In February 2011, the UFC put on one of their greatest fight cards ever as Anderson Silva defended his 185lb title for the eighth time in the main event.
Also on the card was current UFC GOAT, Jon Jones, as he made his seventh appearance in the promotion, scoring a 2nd round submission win against Ryan Bader.
Buried towards the bottom of the card was future flyweight GOAT, Demetrious Johnson who took on Norifimi Yamamoto.
Anderson Silva scores famous front kick KO against Vitor Belfort at UFC 126
Kicking the event off on the Facebook prelims was ‘Mightymouse’ who went on to secure the unanimous decision victory against Yamamoto in what was the very beginning of his UFC journey.
The card then featured fights including the likes of Chad Mendes and Donald Cerrone, before ‘Bones’ stepped in for his biggest test at the time.
Then in the co-main event, fans were treated to a light heavyweight war between Forrest Griffin and Rich Franklin which was awarded the way of Griffin.
‘The Spider’ Silva was widely regarded as the UFC’s biggest star at the time and he was continuing to show his starpower with several middleweight title defenses.
Just a year prior, the Brazilian scored one of the biggest comeback victories of all time when he submitted Chael Sonnen in the fifth round of their UFC 117 main event.
Belfort was coming in off the back of five impressive wins, four of which he had finished with a KO.
Despite that, he was rendered unconscious in the first round of his title fight after Silva landed one of the most vicious kicks in UFC history, connecting flush on the chin with a front kick.
What followed was one of the most iconic moments in the promotion’s history as Silva didn’t rush in to ground-and-pound his fellow countryman and just walked away with his arms raised.
Other famous kick KO’s in UFC history
There have been several famous kick KO’s in UFC history and Holly Holm’s over Ronda Rousey stands out as one of the most significant.
Rousey was widely considered to be unbeatable when she faced off against Holm in 2015 but ‘The Preacher’s Daughter’ landed a huge head kick in round two, rendering Rousey unconscious in one of the biggest upsets ever.
Leon Edwards also etched his name in the history books back in 2021 when he knocked Kamaru Usman out in the fifth round of their title fight main event, scoring one of the craziest comeback wins ever.
