This is a phenomenal way to win a tournament final.
The best knockout of the weekend likely goes to French lightweight Mansour Barnaoui, who fought Russia’s Shamil Zavurov in the ROAD FC lightweight tournament final in the South Korean capital of Seoul.
Less than a minute into the third round, Barnaoui uncorked a wicked flying knee that had Zavurov looking like a crash test dummy as he crashed to the mat, his head bouncing against the canvas twice over. Watch the video below, because it’s spectacular.
And for those who can’t see the DAZN video due to being geoblocked, here’s the GIF:
In the final of a bracket spanning 2 years, former M-1/BAMMA champ Mansour Barnaoui KO's Shamil Zavurov in the 32-man ROAD $1M Lightweight tournament final. pic.twitter.com/rVHtxICBDA
— caposa (@Grabaka_Hitman) February 23, 2019
Barnaoui collected $200,000 by winning the final, and he also gets a title shot against ROAD FC champion Kwon A-Sol, with the victor getting the grand prize of $1 million. That’s certainly one hell of a way to win a tournament.
Of note from this KO, Zavurov is actually the second cousin of UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov, who was in Seoul to corner his relative/teammate. This is only his second career knockout defeat, with his previous one coming in 2016 against Khusein Khaliev, also via knee.
Road FC shares the moment of Khabib Nurmagomedov supports his teammate, Former M-1 Champ, Shamil Zavurov today in South Korea.
— Bruno Massami (Бруно Массами) (@BrMassami) February 23, 2019
Zavurov loses by KO to Mansour Barnaoui and lost the opportunity to get 200k US Dollars and face the Champion, Kwon A-Sol in May to 1 Million prizes. pic.twitter.com/rMM7eettWp
