One stunning knee earned Patchy Mix two championship belts.
Mix landed a knee to the chin of Raufeon Stots barely a minute into the Bellator 295 main event on Saturday night in Honolulu, taking away Stots' interim bantamweight championship in a bout that also served as the final of the Bellator Bantamweight World Grand Prix.
The result was a departure from the norm for Mix (18-1), who had scored submissions in 11 of his past 12 victories. But Stots is a two-time NCAA Division II wrestling champion, capable of preventing grappling specialists from taking him to the canvas.
So the early moments of the bout played out with the fighters on their feet -- until Mix came forward with a left knee to Stots' chin and dropped him flat on his back. No follow-up shots were necessary, as referee Jason Herzog immediately jumped in to wave off the bout as a knockout at 1 minute, 20 seconds of Round 1.
"People think I'm just a ground guy," Mix said afterward inside the cage, with his two new title belts draped over him. "I just knocked out 19-1 Raufeon Stots in a minute with my back-side knee. I've been working that for months."
Mix earned a $1 million bonus for winning the Grand Prix. Stots (19-2) saw an 11-fight winning streak come to an end.
The victory puts Mix in position to challenge for the unified bantamweight title. But he will have to wait his turn. Champion Sergio Pettis, who has been out for 16 months with a torn ACL, recently was booked to defend his title on June 16 against featherweight (and former lightweight) champ Patricio "Pitbull" Freire, who will be seeking to become the first fighter to win titles in three weight classes in a major MMA promotion. Mix will face the winner.
Bellator 295, which concluded a weekend of two fight cards for the promotion at Neal S. Blaisdell Arena, had two fights scrapped after flyweight Ray Borg and featherweight Keoni Diggs missed weight on Friday. Bellator released both fighters, and Borg, who was scheduled to make his Bellator debut against former bantamweight champion Kyoji Horiguchi, later announced his retirement.
Borg, who challenged Demetrious Johnson for the UFC flyweight belt in 2017, had a long history of weight-management issues, including missing weight four times in the UFC.