George Sotiropoulos
Truth be told, Sotiropoulos’ story is different from the others here. The knockout he suffered prior to his fight with Ross Pearson back in 2012 took place some time before they actually fought. But the circumstances surrounding it are so unique that it’s worth telling here. Sotiropoulos had been coming off a knockout loss to Rafael dos Anjos in 2011 when he was handed a golden opportunity to coach Team Australia on The Ultimate Fighter against the UK team led by Pearson.
During the course of filming the two team coaches became embroiled in a war of words on Twitter. Pearson’s assistant boxing coach Erin Beach became involved. Sotiropoulos angrily sought out Beach and sucker-punched him off-camera while on the TUF set. But that backfired when Beach retaliated by knocking him out in the resulting melee. Sotiropoulos and Pearson had a chance to settle their differences in the Octagon. And it proved to be a terrible night for the Aussie, as Pearson would drop him easily on several occasions during the fight, before eventually finishing him with a hard jab in the third round.
