If you haven’t seen it by now, stop reading and go watch Dong Hyun Kim’s vicious knockout of John Hathaway from Saturday’s UFC Fight Night main event.
Don’t worry we’ll wait.
Awesome, right? Clearly the clubhouse leader for Knockout of the Year, and a finish that is going to be hard to beat, even if there are 10 months and 30-someodd more events yet to come in the UFC alone.
Whether you got up to watch it live or caught a replay, there is no way to come away from that performance without thinking that Kim has morphed into a dangerous threat in the welterweight division.
Prior to his freak muscle spasm loss to Demian Maia, Kim’s previous style was best described as “sleeping on top of people,” as my buddy Jordan put it on Twitter during Saturday’s contest. Since then, the 32-year-old “Stun Gun” has become a ferocious force in the cage, beasting Paulo Thiago and Siyar Bahadurzada on the ground before sleeping Erick Silva and Hathaway in consecutive contests.
He’s now run his winning streak to four, pushing his record to 10-2 (1 NC) overall in the UFC. His only losses are that weird early ending against Maia and his thumping at the hands (well, knee and hands) of Carlos Condit at UFC 132.
With the shifting landscape of the 170-pound ranks, Kim has now positioned himself at the low end of the top 10 and in line for a date with a more established opponent next time around. Because the majority of the major players in the weight class are going to hit the Octagon in the next four-to-six weeks, there will be ample opportunity to make the best match-ups possible to delineate things within the division and set up what should be a thrilling second half of 2014 in the deep and talented welterweight ranks.
The winner of the upcoming bout between Jake Shields and Hector Lombard set for UFC 171 later this month seems like the logical next opponent for the surging South Korean contender.
Shields is unbeaten in his last four outings, earning consecutive split decision wins over Maia and Tyron Woodley to put himself back in the title mix after a brief move to middleweight. The former title challenger is a suffocating grappler who is capable of shutting down just about anyone in the division, and if he’s able to do that to Lombard to collect his third straight win, seeing if he can do the same against the Team M.A.D. judoka with developing power would make sense.
As for Lombard, he made a statement in his much-anticipated move to welterweight after stumbling to a 1-2 record following his move to the UFC from Bellator. The former Olympian bombed on Nate Marquardt, finishing the former Strikeforce champion in under two minutes, showing the devastating power and dangerous speed that highlight so many of his highlight reel wins earlier in his career.
Doing the same to Shields—a fighter who has lost just twice in the last decade and only been finished twice in his nearly 15-year career—would elevate Lombard into the title picture, but leave him a step or two behind some of the more established contenders, just like Kim. Pitting the two against each other sometime in the summer (or when the UFC returns to the Japan in the fall) would place the winner on the short list of potential title contenders in the welterweight division.
Here’s a quick look at potential pairings for the rest of Saturday’s main card competitors.
John Hathaway vs. Court McGee
The knockout was nasty, but there were pieces of the fight that reminded you of Hathaway’s prospect status. Coming back off a lengthy layoff, he shook off some early power shots and was holding his own prior to getting dropped.
A match-up with the durable McGee sometime this summer works on a number of levels—they’re both coming off losses, fall in the middle of the division, and need a strong performance to maintain their place in the deep welterweight ranks. Hathaway is likely to need some time off following Saturday’s finish and McGee is recovering from wrist surgery, so the timelines would conceivably work out too.
Zhang Lipeng vs. As Yet Unsigned Punching Bag
Most people (myself included) thought Wang Sai did enough to win the TUF: China welterweight finale, but the judges gave the victory to Lipeng. Given the UFC’s plans to return to Macau in August, chances are that’s when we’ll next see “The Warrior” and it’s highly probable that he’ll be fighting someone he’s expected to trounce.
Matt Mitrione vs. Ben Rothwell
Rothwell is currently serving a nine-month suspension after registering elevated testosterone levels following his UFC 164 win over Brandon Vera. He’s eligible to return in May, which means a summer meeting with Mitrione could work.
Both guys are cemented in the middle ground of the heavyweight division—dangerous opponents for others in the same range or lower, but thus far unable to take the next step. Pair them off, move the winner up another notch, and figure it out from there.
Hatsu Hioki vs. Zubaira Tukhugov
Hioki is a much better fighter when he’s not making lengthy trips to compete in North America. With the UFC planning a September event in Japan, keeping Hioki sidelined until then makes sense.
Pairing him with the young Chechen Tukhugov would be an opportunity to see how the Tiger Muay Thai product stacks up in the featherweight division. He looked solid in his debut against Douglas Silva de Andrade last month, but considering the division has never been deeper, why not see if the Thailand-based fighter is ready to swim with the sharks?
Both men get to prepare at home and minimize travel, which should maximize their performances, and you get a fight that appeals to the ticket-buying public that will pack this show. Makes sense to me.