Elijah Smith and gravity combined for the most brutal knockout of UFC Vegas 109.
Facing Toshiomi Kazama in the prelims, the bantamweight scored the 15th slam knockout in UFC history on Saturday, picking up his opponent and slamming him down head first onto the canvas.
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Kazama appeared unconscious after the impact, but Smith still landed two more hard punches to the head before referee Chris Tognoni stepped in to end the fight. Kazama remained motionless for multiple minutes after.
Kazama was still down when the official result was announced, but managed to leave the Octagon under his own power after that.
Per the UFC broadcast, Kazama was taken to the trauma center of the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada for treatment. Kazama’s CT scans came back negative and he was set to be discharged from the hospital, the broadcast later noted.
Smith had been the biggest favorite on the card, but he was actually closer to disaster than the end made it seem. As ESPN’s Daniel Cormier noted, Kazama had him in a triangle hold before the slam, which is how he won his previous fight against Charalampos Grigoriou. If the slam landed wrongly, he risked going even deeper into the triangle.
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“I want to pray for my opponent. Hopefully he makes it home safe,” Smith said in his postfight interview. “I knew I had to slam him correctly. Unfortunately I had to slam him on his dome piece … I hope the slam gets in that [Performance of the Night] conversation.”
The win improves Smith’s record to 9-1, with two wins in his first two UFC appearances. He repeatedly shouted out Rampage Jackson after the finish, and impressed a number of UFC veterans with the effort.
