Top 10 Global Knockouts of 2014
Hurricane Kick Awesome
XFS “Tidal Wave”
Aug. 23 | Valley Center, Calif.
Chris Nelson: The Instagram video that made the rounds in the hours and days after Christine Stanley did what she did was only nine seconds long, but that was all anyone needed to see. Stanley, who trains with the aptly named Team Hurricane Awesome, steps out of her corner to meet opponent Katie Runyan in the center of the cage. Then, Stanley spins counterclockwise and launches herself into the air, her right heel leading the way. Stanley’s foot collides with the right temple of Runyan, who stiffens up and crashes to the canvas, a twitching victim of one of the flashiest and nastiest knockouts seen anywhere in MMA last year.
Jordan Breen: This list is dedicated to the best non-UFC, non-Bellator knockouts of the year, but even bearing that in mind, we try to consider the quality of the fighters involved. In most cases, a fight between two novice fighters on a low-rent Southern Californian MMA card more akin to a glorified smoker would get passed over in favor of higher-quality entrants. Hell, one of the sponsors on the cage padding is “Tomato Can MMA.” That goes doubly so if the best available footage of the fight is a smartphone video. But, what Christine Stanley did to Katie Runyan simply can't be ignored, in any way, shape or form.
Back to my previous point about relative merit, I would never consider this the “Knockout of the Year” for the reasons I detailed above. All things considered, there were more sterling, worthy candidates to that mantle. But, if I was asked, free of relevance and context, what the craziest thing I saw this year in MMA was, I would pull this video out without hesitation. This is not a knockout commonplace in bush league MMA. This is not a knockout commonplace in MMA, period. This is a knockout you typically see in the “Street Fighter” series. I'm not saying that a flying, spinning hook kick will never happen again, but there's not too many damn folks who can even give it the old college try. And that's to say nothing of the fact that it happened instantaneously. Hurricane dragon kick annihilation in a mere five seconds.The video linked above is from WorldStarHipHop's Youtube channel; that's not an accident, but an ode to the violence here.
And if that isn't good enough, we even get karate granddad Cecil Peoples as the referee, looking simultaneously shocked and terrified by the outcome. This is just about as good as it gets.
Number 4 » Grandslam Indeed
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