The Double KO
MMA’s equivalent of the Holy Grail, the double knockout is as rare as hen’s teeth, and when it happens is something that lives long in the memory.
The first such occurence happeneded during a fight between Matt Hughes and Carlos Newton at UFC 34 in 2001.
Newton was able to cinch up a triangle choke in the second round, which led to Hughes hoisting him up off the mat and over to the cage, but he refused to let go.
In desperation Hughes tried for a slam and ended up knocking out Newton in the process to earn a KO victory.
As such it wasn’t technically a double knockout in the record books, but Hughes would later admit he had fallen unconscious before he’d completed the slam.
A more visible variant of the double KO happened several years later when Gray Maynard also attempted a slam against Rob Emerson at the TUF 5 Finale in 2007, only to land head first onto the mat, leaving him slumped in a daze on top of the also incapacitated Emerson.
Maynard groggily rolled off and failed in his attempts to stand back up afterwards, but in his rocked state he was convinced he had won the fight, leading to a heated post-fight interview with Joe Rogan, who played the replay back several times to prove the no-contest ruling due to a double KO was the right result.
