Near-Finishes That Could Have Changed MMA

[SteveMR]

-Condit head kicking GSP and nearly putting him away with vicious GnP, only for GSP to get up, take him back down and win 50-45. Would have given Condit one of the greatest TKOs of all-time to cap off an already epic run to the interim title, made him one of the best WWs ever and who knows if we ever would have heard from GSP again

-Vitor nearly snapping Jones’ arm less than a minute into their fight only to get systematically dismantled the rest of the way. Would have finally given Vitor a legitimate claim to the LHW belt and certified him as an all-time great while shattering Bones’ aura of invincibility and rivaling Werdum/Fedor for most shocking sub in MMA history

-Arona nearly KOing Rampage from his back with an upkick and hammerfists, only to be Aronabombed moments later. Would have potentially robbed us of the Wand/Page rematch and would have caused Wand to fight Arona much sooner, likely losing his title and making Arona the #1 LHW in the process

-Carwin beating Brock into a living death in the first round but failing to put out his lights, thus punching himself out and tapping out almost immediately to an arm triangle in the second round. Would have given the undefeated Carwin five straight first-round KOs to begin his UFC career, including one against the UFC’s seemingly unstoppable megastar. Then again, Cain probably would have mauled Carwin anyway and we’d be somewhere close to where we are today, but at least we would have gotten to see it.

Other examples?

 

[FireKidWS]

-Condit head kicking GSP and nearly putting him away with vicious GnP, only for GSP to get up, take him back down and win 50-45. Would have given Condit one of the greatest TKOs of all-time to cap off an already epic run to the interim title, made him one of the best WWs ever and who knows if we ever would have heard from GSP again

-Vitor nearly snapping Jones’ arm less than a minute into their fight only to get systematically dismantled the rest of the way. Would have finally given Vitor a legitimate claim to the LHW belt and certified him as an all-time great while shattering Bones’ aura of invincibility and rivaling Werdum/Fedor for most shocking sub in MMA history

-Arona nearly KOing Rampage from his back with an upkick and hammerfists, only to be Aronabombed moments later. Would have potentially robbed us of the Wand/Page rematch and would have caused Wand to fight Arona much sooner, likely losing his title and making Arona the #1 LHW in the process

-Carwin beating Brock into a living death in the first round but failing to put out his lights, thus punching himself out and tapping out almost immediately to an arm triangle in the second round. Would have given the undefeated Carwin five straight first-round KOs to begin his UFC career, including one against the UFC’s seemingly unstoppable megastar. Then again, Cain probably would have mauled Carwin anyway and we’d be somewhere close to where we are today, but at least we would have gotten to see it.

Other examples?

-Chael almost beating Jones by broken toe

-Chael almost beating Anderson by domination and clock run out (to be fair he didn’t understand that if you tap after beating someone for 4 rounds previously you still lose the fight.)

 

[Fedor>Cain]

Fujita KOing Fedor

Randleman KOing Fedor

 

[Diet Butcher]

Shamrock vs Severn 2
UFC 9

 

[Stalkingsquid]

Kongo vs Barry. Not a big impact on the sport as a whole, but that fight coulda been stopped anytime.

 

[Egészségére!]

huge w/o the ko

with ko even Henderson said he would have never lived it down

 

[SteveMR]

Fujita KOing Fedor

Randleman KOing Fedor

I thought about both of these, but both times Fedor recovered so quickly that you never really thought he might get stopped. Maybe killed by Kevin, but not stopped.

 

[Muppettoker]

huge w/o the ko

with ko even Henderson said he would have never lived it down

Seen it so many times in gif form it’s lost a lot of its impact but at the time I remember going absoutly bananas

 

[SteveMR]

Before anyone else mentions it, I can’t believe I forgot to include Gray/Frankie 2 and 3. Might not have had the same widespread implications on the sport as the first four, but still, I do wonder what kind of path Frankie would have taken, and who would have been the one to knock off Gray.

 

[Joohnmatrix]

If there had of been five seconds left on the clock and anderson had of followed up on his knee to bisbing we could have seen him as champ facing off against gsp, although would gsp have come out of retirement?

 

[Egészségére!]

I was big time rooting for TJ but if that 1st round had another 30 sec it might have changed a lot of things

 

[Kung Fu bb]

 

[Chomsky Honk]

BJ Penn vs Jens Pulver 1 whatever round Pulver was saved by the bell
BJ Penn vs Matt Hughes 2 end of Round 2

 

[Brom Bones]

Both times Gray Maynard came a strike away from taking out Frankie. He tried one tactic (selling out for the win), learned from it and did the opposite the 2nd time (not selling out for the KO) and won neither fight.

One of those wouda, coulda, shoulda deals. He hasn't come close to a title since.

 

[Pitier of Fools]

Frank Trigg almost choking out Matt Hughes.

 

[j18lee]

Imagine if Aldo's left hook landed just a split second before Conor's for a 12-second KO. UFC may no longer exist.... And we all may be training Bellator now instead.

 

[Evangelion]

If there had of been five seconds left on the clock and anderson had of followed up on his knee to bisbing we could have seen him as champ facing off against gsp, although would gsp have come out of retirement?

Rockhold would of absolutely mauled Anderson. Imagine what Chael did in fight 1 times 5

 

[Koimpact]

If Newton was given the win over Hughes and Hughes never went on his epic run, we might never have seen such a wrestling based 170 division and maybe even by extension wrestling heavy style of modern MMA

 

[Pancake Sprawl]

Bob Sapp piledriving Nog on his head.

i watched that fight live and thought i had literally watched someone just get killed in the ring.

had Bob just stood up instead of punching him again, he'd have beaten the best MMA HW on the planet, and then a few months later he'd have beaten one of the greatest kickboxers ever.

laughing stock Bob Sapp nearly beat the 2 greatest HW fighters on the planet at that time with a 2-1 record in kickboxing and a 2-1 record in MMA.

not to mention Fedor apparently refused to fight Sapp at that time.

laughing stock Bob Sapp isn't such a laughing stock when you think about what he did in a few months of training and a whole lot of roids.

 

[boss429]

Imagine if Aldo's left hook landed just a split second before Conor's for a 12-second KO. UFC may no longer exist.... And we all may be training Bellator now instead.

I was going to mention this too but a slightly different take. Imagine if Conor had a shittier chin and the fight ended in a 10 second double KO.

Aldo clocked him and that punch would have put a lot of guy's away, would have been the most incredible moment in UFC history and an immediate re-match would have followed.