A Bellator MMA fighter let his opponent hit him over and over so he could time the ultimate counter punch KO
- Goiti Yamauchi let his opponent Neiman Gracie punch him in the face again and again.
- It was all a cunning strategy so he could time the perfect uppercut.
A cunning Bellator MMA fighter let his opponent punch him on the face again and again just so he could time the perfect counterpunch knockout.
Rising welterweight competitor Goiti Yamauchi, 29, said in a statement sent to Insider after his win on Friday against Neiman Gracie, that he had seen his opponent "make some mistakes" in previous fights, "so I exploited them."
Although Yamauchi dropped Gracie in the first round with what he called a "good left hand," he couldn't finish his 170-pound rival there and then.
So he then entered "beast mode."
Yamauchi meant he would throw shot after shot, and even allow Gracie to hit him with shot after shot, just so he could make sense of his throwing patterns, and his distance, and punish him as and when he made a fateful mistake.
That mistake came in the second round as, when Gracie lunged forward with a reckless attack, Yamauchi targeted his chin with a thunderous uppercut and left him on the floor.
It was all over. "It feels amazing," Yamauchi said. "This moment, I consider the beginning of an era, my era; the best time of my life. I just wanted to take some shots and make the fight dramatic. 'Big drama show.' I went for it in this fight, and it worked."
"When I threw the uppercut, I knew he was done," Yamauchi added. "His body just dropped too fast, and I knew this was the end of the fight."
Watch the fight-ending finish right here:
'It's meaningful beating a hell of a fighter,' said Yamauchi
Yamauchi praised Gracie, a 33-year-old and 4th generation member of the sport's iconic Gracie Family of Brazilian jiu jitsu, after their match.
He called him a "hell of a fighter" and said that it's meaningful to him to beat that caliber of opponent. "Winning by knockout, that's what I was planning to do [because] he's a very dangerous grappler."
"He's a natural-born grappler," said Yamauchi. "He's very comfortable on the ground. It made the fight very difficult, but I think I made the right strategy; you can't have a plan to fight a guy like Neiman, you just have to adapt your style during the fight, and that's what I did."
Victory advanced Yamauchi's pro MMA record 28 wins (three knockouts, 21 submissions, and four decisions) against five losses.