Mounir Fathi produced perhaps the most devastating performance of his career, knocking down Anton Markovic before forcing the referee to stop the contest in the very first round.
Fathi, who had not fought since a contentious loss to Joel Pavlides last November, recorded the seventh knockout and seventh win of his career in brutal fashion.
The Moroccan was evidently desperate to remind Australia of his super welterweight credentials and wasted little time in doing so.
Noticing his rival’s limited head movement, Fathi rocked Markovic with a clean right uppercut and dropped him with a sweet right hand.
Markovic showed remarkable toughness to climb off the canvas for the first time, but Fathi and the crowd sensed it was almost delaying the inevitable.
Fathi knocked down Markovic again within seconds, this time from a flurry of punches.
Markovic once again beat the count, but at this point he was a sitting duck.
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The ringside inspector saved Markovic any further damage, blowing his whistle to force referee Will Soulos to stop the contest.
Fathi was overjoyed with the victory as he backflipped off the ropes not once, but twice as he got back in the win column.
“I think he’s going a long way,” Australian UFC superstar Alex Volkanovski said in commentary for Main Event. “He looked incredible, very impressive.”
Fathi is coached by former world champion Billy Dib, who has already proclaimed the Moroccan star a future world champion.
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Source Agencies
