Pros react to Edson Barboza’s incredible flying knee KO of Beneil Dariush

Last night, the UFC touched down in sunny Fortaleza, Brazil, with UFC Fight Night 106. This card was an extremely stacked one as far as Fight Nights go. In the evening’s middleweight main event, we saw former welterweight contender Kelvin Gastelum maul former light heavyweight champion Vitor Belfort to a first-round TKO win. In the co-main event, meanwhile, we saw Pride legend Mauricio “Shogun” Rua score a vintage win by clobbering Gian Villante to a third-round TKO. Other highlights of the main card included a nice submission win from Alex “Cowboy” Oliveira, and close battles between Bethe Correia and Marion Reneau, and Ray Borg and Jussier “Formiga” Da Silva. In terms of pure spectacle, however, no fight on the card delivered quite like Edson Barboza’s flying knee knockout of Beneil Dariush.

Despite this emphatic win, Barboza was actually having difficultly in the early portions of the fight, as he gave up the first round, unable to land his patented offense in the face of Dariush’s ceaseless pressure. Ultimately, however, he found his opening, unleashing the jump knee as Dariush shot in on a telegraphed takedown. And just like that, it was lights out.

Unsurprisingly, this latest addition to Barboza’s highlight reel generated plenty of interesting reactions from the MMA community. Without further ado, here are some of the best of those reactions!

Holy shit !!! @EdsonBarbozaJR @RABJJAcademy @MarkCoachmark13

— Eddie Alvarez (@Ealvarezfight) March 12, 2017

Holy $&@! !!!!!!!!! @ufc #barboza

— Alan Jouban (@AlanJouban) March 12, 2017

Wooooooooooow!!!!!! #UFCFORTaleza

— Belal Muhammad (@bullyb170) March 12, 2017

And this is why I love Barboza damn that knee

— Felice Herrig (@feliceherrig) March 12, 2017

Holy shit! Barboza with the highlight reel KO! #UFCFortaleza

— Chris Camozzi (@ChrisCamozzi) March 12, 2017

And Daruish is dead. #UFCFortaleza

— The Mane Event™ (@EliasTheodorou) March 12, 2017

That was a leaping knee of utter, destructive beauty. #UFCFortaleza

— The Mane Event™ (@EliasTheodorou) March 12, 2017

Barbosa'd!!! #UFCFortaleza

— Sean O'Connell (@realOCsports) March 12, 2017

Dariush thru the jab to shot more than once in that fight and Barboza read it that time. Very impressive.

— Matt Brown (@IamTheImmortal) March 12, 2017

Ho lee fuk…#UFCFortaleza

— Ben 10 Nguyen (@Ben10MMA) March 12, 2017

HO
LEE
FUK

That KO was clean. #UFCFortaleza

— Johnny Hollywood ジョニーケース (@HollywoodCase) March 12, 2017

Holy ……What just happened? @beneildariush was looking phenomenal but man just like that. Lights out! Wow @EdsonBarbozaJR #UFCFortaleza

— Zak Cummings (@ZakCummings) March 12, 2017

Holy fuck, what a KO by @EdsonBarbozaJR !!! 😲 Almost had me jumping out of my chair in the commentating booth! #UFCFortaleza

— Nicolas “Danish Dynamite” Dalby (@DalbyMMA) March 12, 2017

Sloppy desperation takedowns get you in trouble every time.

— Will Brooks (@ILLxWillBrooks) March 12, 2017

With this crushing defeat of Dariush, Barboza moves onto a three-fight win streak as he has defeated former UFC champ Anthony Pettis and former Strikeforce champ Gilbert Melendez in his next most recent bouts. Now 19-4 overall, he quickly began calling for a rematch with Tony Ferguson in the wake of this latest win.

What did you think of Edson Barboza’s knockout of Beneil Dariush? Do you want to see him fight Tony Ferguson next? Sound off, PENN Nation!

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 3/12/2017.