It’s Memorial Day weekend in the U.S., and until a few years ago that always meant a reasonably big pay-per-view event for the UFC.
From 2006 until 2015, fans could count on the Saturday before the holiday for a card usually worth traveling for. The 2006 event was at Staples Center in Los Angeles, but the next nine went down at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas – and fans came out to take advantage of that extra holiday off day on the tail end in “Sin City.”
The big pay-per-views centered around the holiday stopped in 2016, but we still got 10 years’ worth of highlights, and plenty of them.
This weekend, we’ll take a look back at the 10 Memorial Day weekend UFC pay-per-views with the best submissions (Friday), knockouts (Saturday) and fights (Sunday). Monday, we’ll rank the 10 cards and get your votes on which of them was the best overall.
So let’s keep it rolling with the UFC’s best Memorial Day weekend knockouts, presented chronologically.
Also see:
Matt Hughes vs. Royce Gracie
Matt Hughes vs. Royce Gracie
Event: UFC 60 Date: May 27, 2006 Result: Matt Hughes def. Royce Gracie via TKO (punches) – Round 1, 4:39 Notes: Hughes’ TKO of Gracie was notable more for the historic nature of the fight than its competitiveness. Hughes was in his prime as the UFC’s welterweight champion. Gracie was 39 and returning to the UFC for the first time in more than a decade. The allure was to see if the sport’s godfather could hang with a new-breed wrestler, and it wasn’t very close. The setback was one of only two in Gracie’s career. He made a cool $400,000. At the time, the event was the UFC’s top pay-per-view in history.
Quinton Jackson vs. Chuck Liddell
Quinton Jackson vs. Chuck Liddell
Event: UFC 71 Date: May 26, 2007 Result: Quinton Jackson def. Chuck Liddell via TKO (punches) – Round 1, 1:53 Notes: “Rampage” won a $40,000 “Knockout of the Night” bonus. He also won the light heavyweight title against Liddell, who at the time arguably was the sport’s biggest star. UFC 71 was a major turning point for the promotion. The allure of the rematch between “Rampage” and “The Iceman,” who first fought in 2003 in PRIDE, was a big draw for ESPN and other national media outlets who hadn’t done much coverage of MMA until that point.
Wanderlei Silva vs. Keith Jardine
Wanderlei Silva
Event: UFC 84 Date: May 24, 2008 Result: Wanderlei Silva def. Keith Jardine via knockout (punches) – Round 1, 0:36 Notes: Silva won a $75,000 “Knockout of the Night” bonus. The bonus was Silva’s second in the UFC; he went on to win five more. His stoppage was one of nine in 11 fights on the card. The finish was regarded by many media outlets as the “Knockout of the Year” for 2008. That came on the heels of Silva’s “Fight of the Night” loss to Chuck Liddell at UFC 79 – which was widely regarded as 2007’s “Fight of the Year.”
Lyoto Machida vs. Rashad Evans
Lyoto Machida vs. Rashad Evans
Event: UFC 98 Date: May 23, 2009 Result: Lyoto Machida def. Rashad Evans via knockout (punches) – Round 2, 3:57 Notes: Machida won a $60,000 “Knockout of the Night” bonus. He also won the light heavyweight title against Evans, who was attempting his first title defense after winning the belt against Forrest Griffin five months earlier. The bonus was Machida’s second in a row on his way to nine total during his UFC tenure.
Mike Russow vs. Todd Duffee
Mike Russow
Event: UFC 114 Date: May 29, 2010 Result: Mike Russow def. Todd Duffee via knockout (punch) – Round 3, 2:35 Notes: Russow won a $65,000 “Knockout of the Night” bonus. He was a heavy underdog against Duffee, who was more than a 6-1 favorite – and proved why in the first two rounds. Somehow, Russow stuck around long enough to stun Duffee midway through the final frame. The bonus was the only one Russow won in his six UFC fights. Known more for his ground game (he had eight submissions in his 15 career wins), the win was one of just four KOs in Russow’s career.
Travis Browne vs. Stefan Struve
Travis Browne
Event: UFC 130 Date: May 28, 2011 Result: Travis Browne def. Stefan Struve via knockout (Superman punch) – Round 1, 4:11 Notes: Browne won a $70,000 “Knockout of the Night” bonus. His win was the only first-round stoppage on the card and one of just three finishes in 10 fights. Browne’s win kept him unbeaten and was his 10th stoppage in 11 wins up to that point – including 10 knockouts. It also was his first UFC bonus. The Hawaiian won six more post-fight awards before hanging up the gloves in 2017.
Jamie Varner vs. Edson Barboza
Jamie Varner
Event: UFC 146 Date: May 26, 2012 Result: Jamie Varner def. Edson Barboza via TKO (punches) – Round 1, 3:23 Notes: Varner getting a stoppage win shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Of his 19 previous wins ahead of UFC 146, 17 came from a knockout or submission. What was a surprise, though, was that he was able to finish Barboza, who came into the fight 10-0 – and had four post-fight bonuses in his first four UFC fights, including an all-timer spinning wheel kick KO of Terry Etim five months prior. Barboza was nearly a 7-1 favorite against Varner, who pulled off a first-round stunner on a show that had nine stoppages in 12 fights. To add to the lore of Varner’s feat, he took the fight with Barboza on less than a month’s notice to return to the UFC after not initially coming over in the WEC merger. His win over Barboza was most MMA outlets’ “Upset of the Year” for 2012.
Cain Velasquez vs. Antonio Silva
Cain Velasquez vs. Antonio Silva
Event: UFC 160 Date: May 25, 2013 Result: Cain Velasquez def. Antonio Silva via TKO (punches) – Round 1, 1:21 Notes: A year to the weekend after he first beat Silva with a first-round TKO, Velasquez finished the Brazilian again in the first round at the same venue. Velasquez’s first win over Silva in 2012 came in his first fight back after losing the heavyweight title to Junior Dos Santos. And that win got him a rematch with JDS – a fight he won at UFC 155 to reclaim the belt. The rematch with Silva was a defense of his title and part of a five-fight run of consecutive bouts that saw him go 2-0 against Silva and 2-1 against Dos Santos.
T.J. Dillashaw vs. Renan Barao
T.J. Dillashaw vs. Renan Barao
Event: UFC 173 Date: May 24, 2014 Result: T.J. Dillashaw def. Renan Barao via TKO (head kick, punches) – Round 5, 2:26 Notes: Dillashaw won a $50,000 “Performance of the Night” bonus and another $50,000 for “Fight of the Night.” Those post-fight checks were his second and third in the UFC; he currently has eight bonus awards. He also won the bantamweight title with a dominant performance against champion Barao – who had won an incredible 32 straight fights and hadn’t lost since his pro debut in 2005. The loss to Dillashaw started a disastrous 2-8 post-title run for the Brazilian, who also lost to Dillashaw in a rematch the next year.
Chris Weidman vs. Vitor Belfort
Chris Weidman vs. Vitor Belfort
Event: UFC 187 Date: May 23, 2015 Result: Chris Weidman def. Vitor Belfort via TKO (punches) – Round 1, 2:53 Notes: Dillashaw won a $50,000 “Performance of the Night” bonus. But that dwarfed his $500,000 disclosed pay for his middleweight title defense against Belfort. The bonus was Weidman’s fifth of a current seven in the UFC. It also was his fourth straight title fight victory after two wins over Anderson Silva and one over Lyoto Machida. The defense against Belfort also was Weidman’s last win as champion. He lost the belt his next time out against Luke Rockhold, which set off a current 2-6 slide. [vertical-gallery id=391998] [vertical-gallery id=329266] [listicle id=554627]
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