Missed Fists: Guilherme Mendonca scores mid-air knockout of leaping opponent

Welcome to the latest edition of Missed Fists where we shine a light on fights from across the globe that may have been overlooked in these hectic times where it seems like there’s an MMA show every other day.

It was a huge weekend for non-UFC promotions, with PFL giving us one of the best fights of the year so far, BKFC delivering a historic card in Philadelphia that rocked from top to bottom, and GFL doing whatever the hell the GFL is doing.

And with all that there was still amazing MMA action taking place across the globe from the streets of Sao Paulo to the exotic land of Prior Lake, Minn., to the frozen tundra of Canada, to Radom, Poland (I don’t know a lot about Radom).

If BKFC didn’t scratch that violence itch, check out this face-eraser from Brazil.

(Big thanks as always to @Barrelelapierna for their weekly lists of the best KOs and submissions, and to @Grabaka_Hitman for uploading many of the clips you see here. Give them a follow and chip in on Patreon if you can.)

Guilherme Mendonca vs. Anderson Zargo

Last week, we saw Hamidreza Tayebinia land a knockout punch on a leaping opponent that evoked the ending Fedor-Arlovski and guess what? It happened again! And this one was so much worse.

From a Copa Thunder Fight event in Sao Paulo, Guilherme Mendonca read Anderson Zargo perfectly and blasted him with a counter left as Zargo left his feet for some inexplicable reason. The combination of Mendonca’s well-timed strike and Zargo’s ill-timed leap resulted in sheer devastation as Zargo had to be stretchered out after.

Jumping strikes are great, kids, but sometimes you just end up falling into a black hole.

Check out a full replay of the event below, including another angle of that nasty KO.

Ethyn Ewing vs. Santos Verdinez
Chris Mixan vs. Joey Hart
Devon Lozej vs. Enrique Pacheco
Lerryan Douglas vs. Elijah Johns

A big congratulations to Legacy Fighting Alliance for putting on its 200th event. Real ones will remember this promotion officially kicked off in 2017, the result of a merger between two prominent regional promotions, Legacy Fighting Championship and Resurrection Fighting Alliance. Plenty of future stars passed through LFC, including future UFC champions Holly Holm and Valentina Shevchenko, plus Derrick Lewis, Tim Means, Diego Ferreira, and Sage Northcutt among others; today, LFA remains a pipeline for up-and-coming talent.

Case in point, let’s start our look at this past Saturday’s show with Ethyn Ewing.

Ewing absolutely rocked Santos Verdinez with a straight right, which looked like it could have stopped the fight there. However, wasn’t out out, so he managed to get back up, which left him open for a devastating head kick KO.

We’ve previously given out the “Call An Ambulance, But Not For Me” award for crazy comebacks, but this one deserves the inaugural “Call An Ambulance, No, Seriously, Call An Ambulance” award.

Chris Mixan’s counter-punch knockout wasn’t quite as impressive, but no less effective.

Sometimes all it takes is a precision boop to end things.

Devon Lozej took a 9-iron to Enrique Pacheco’s stomach, prompting a well-recognized stoppage by the referee.

Fighting out of Thunder Bay, Ontario, Lozej brings some welcome Canadian content to these parts (more of that later!)

A trio of title fights headlined LFA 200, capped off by Lerryan Douglas unifying the featherweight titles.

Douglas defeated undisputed champion Elijah Johns—yup, the brother of UFC bantamweight Miles Johns—to score the momentous victory, a nice feather in the cap of a guy who’s been a pro since 2013.

We also have to give shout-outs to Russia’s Shamidkhan Magomedov, an Ultimate Fighter 32 contestant that unified the welterweight titles and boosted his record to 10-1 with a submission of Vanilto Antunes, and Canada’s own Shannon Clark, who bounced back from an extraordinarily disappointing loss on Contender Series with a split nod over Cheyanne Bowers to defend her flyweight title.

LFA 200 is available for replay on UFC Fight Pass.

Ferdaws Nayimi vs. Potey Dwahy
Radley Da Silva vs. Drew Brokenshire
Roman Tassone vs. Derek Bergen

Also on UFC Fight Pass, we had even more CanCon, with Unified MMA taking place in Toronto and Battlefield Fight League happening in Vancouver.

Ferdaws Nayimi secured the most aggressive finish at Unified MMA 62, mixing all of the martial arts to put away Potey Dwahy.

You got your boxing, you got your ground-and-pound, you got your jiu-jitsu. What more can you ask for?

At Battlefield Fight League 82, Radley Da Silva also delivered an impressive choke-out, one that I’d also file under “Just Bleed Finish of the Week.”

Gross.

For a slightly less grisly choke, let’s check out Roman Tassone scoring a win in his pro debut.

Slick. And not, like, slick with blood, just normal slick.

Andi Vrtacic vs. Cezariusz Kesik
Muslim Tulshaev vs. Daniel Skibinski
Miha Frlic vs. Kamil Gawryjolek

Lost all of that other hullabaloo, KSW 102 went down on Saturday and it didn’t disappoint.

Andi Vrtacic somehow find victory by spinning and spinning and spinning until he spun right into a backfist that cracked Cezariusz Kesik’s jaw.

Jeez, I haven’t seen a blood vortex like that since the alternate ending of Blade.

I’ve watched Vrtacic throw three spinning back kicks in a row so many times and I can’t stop cackling. Somehow, that didn’t get him countered or taken down and actually led beautifully into the backfist. Combat sports!

That finish was the opposite of what Muslim Tulshaev did here.

Tulshaev stood in the pocket with Daniel Skibinski, keeping his cool the whole time, and finding the opening for a right hand on the money. I’ve rewatched that one a few times as well, just to try and see what Tulshaev was seeing in that moment. He actually ate a couple of glancing shots before landing his own, so he was right in there. The line between victory and defeat is that thin.

OK, enough waxing poetic. Let’s wrap up the week with meaty men slapping meat.

Miha Frlic put it on Kamil Gawryjolek and just listen to those punches. Those are big boy smacks. It sounds like the gloves themselves are mic’d up, that’s how hard those were. When Gawryjolek finally goes down, it sounds like someone spilling a load of bricks onto concrete.

In summation: OW!

If you know of a recent fight or event that you think may have been overlooked, or a promotion that could use some attention, please let us know on X — @AlexanderKLee — using the hashtag #MissedFists.