Flying knee knockout at Professional Shooto 2024 Vol 1 Flying knee knockout at Professional Shooto 2024 Vol 1
Takaya Suzuki — remember the name!
The 19-year-old MMA fighter may be unheard of in American MMA circles but the teenage karate-ka scored one of the month’s most brutal finishes Sunday when he obliterated Yuichi Miyagi in a matter of seconds.
It all went down at a Shooto — Professional Shooto 2024 Vol. 1 event Sunday in Tokyo, Japan.
Suzuki jumped a few times on the spot just as the referee signaled with his hands that the match had begun.
He bounced forward a couple times as Miyagi cautiously crept forward with his lead hand held shoulder-high, with his palm open — possibly to touch gloves as a goodwill gesture.
Suddenly, Suzuki switched gears, accelerated forward, and launched his left knee at Miyagi’s face, knocking him down in an instant. With his left fist cocked, Suzuki was ready to pull the hammer for a follow up blow with his fist but it was likely Miyagi was already unconscious at that point.
The referee was only able to intervene when Suzuki had landed two hammer fists, adding a brutal punctuation mark to the lightning-fast knockout win.
It was all over in just four seconds.
Watch it right here:
Takaya Suzuki KO1 Yuichi Miyagi – Professional Shooto
With the victory, Suzuki advanced his pro MMA record to 5 wins (3 KOs, 2 decisions) against one defeat.
The KO is Comparable to Jorge Masvidal’s Legendary Finish
Suzuki’s knockout is one second faster than one of the most iconic finishes in UFC history.
In 2019 at UFC 239, Jorge Masvidal — a cult hero from his internet street-fighting days — finished Ben Askren, a former welterweight from Bellator MMA and One Championship in just five seconds.
Like Suzuki, Masvidal’s knockout win over Askren was from an internet-breaking flying knee.
Watch it here:
ONE YEAR AGO.
🤬 @GamebredFighter gave us arguably the most iconic KO of all-time!
The victory catapulted Masvidal’s stardom and thrust him into an attention-grabbing match with Nate Diaz at UFC 244 in New York for the symbolic “BMF” title, which stood for Bad Mother [Expletive].
Masvidal beat Diaz by doctor stoppage and was next seen in the Octagon on Fight Island during the early part of the coronavirus pandemic on July, 2020.
Masvidal lost to Kamaru Usman that night, and then again in the rematch nine months later. Masvidal fought Colby Covington in 2022 and Gilbert Burns in 2023 and lost both times.
There was Once a Knockout Faster Than Suzuki’s
Though knockouts that fast in combat sports are uncommon, we have seen one even quicker than Suzuki’s.
In 2020, Uly Diaz — a bare-knuckle fighter — scored a three-second knockout which set a new record for the fastest KO in Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship (BKFC) history.
The knockout blow was struck so fast that the broadcaster for the BKFC event didn’t even have time to display the graphic for the round clock.
Hunched like he was always about to lunge forward, Diaz threw a jab, and then a huge overhand right which connected cleanly, knocking his opponent Donelei Bonedetto to the floor in an instant.
That solitary power punch caused so much damage that Bonedetto’s eyes could be seen on video rolling back, as if he was unconscious before he had even hit the deck.
Two shots: bang, bang! It was all over.
Watch it here:
