Tony Martin: ‘It Was Inevitable That I’d Start Getting Finishes’
Tony Martin made the most of fighting on the blockbuster UFC 229 card on Saturday night, knocking out Ryan LaFlare with a brutal head kick in the third round to open the show.
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It was a breakout performance for Martin, who earned his first career knockout victory following a string of decisions.
"It was inevitable that I'd start getting finishes,” Martin said. I
came in as just a grappler. My right hand kept landing and it just
set up the left leg behind it.
"Ryan is a legit top 20 welterweight. He’s beat some legit top 15 guys. But nobody has beaten him like I beat him, and in the third round, when most people are content to coast [to a decision victory].”
Martin is now 2-0 at welterweight after moving up from 155 pounds in April. Having mixed results at lightweight, the 28-year-old expressed the massive difference in his performance since moving up a weight class.
"I'm not [a] big [welterweight]” he said. “My technique is enough to beat these guys. I'm no longer killing myself to make weight. Just the stress of not having to cut weight is worth giving up some weight [to my opponent] in the cage.”
]LaFlare is now 3-3 in his last six fights, with two of those losses coming by way of knockout.
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