“It was an elegant, yet throwaway line, completely unscripted, that when combined with the shocking head-kick that followed, became iconic.
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“At Cage Warriors 199, Cage Warriors had our own ‘…not from the cloth’ moment. Nicolas Leblond had been trying to fight Shaj Haque for the flyweight world title for years, with everything from injuries to inclement weather standing in its way. A horrible weight cut that saw him make the championship limit with a solitary minute to spare was the latest spanner in the works.
“The Frenchman wasn’t his usual explosive self on the night, but that could be just as much down to Haque’s incredible ability to make himself almost impossible to draw a bead on. What followed was almost five relatively uneventful rounds of the champion dancing around and chipping away at the challenger. With a minute on the clock, I was desperate to inject a bit of drama into the home stretch.
“‘Can Nicolas Leblond pull off the comeback of the century here?’ I asked, and the Gods of Violence answered. As if on cue, Leblond uncorked a left hook that separated the champ from his senses. A flurry of punches, a snapdown and a rear-naked choke followed in the ensuing chaos and, just like that, the Frenchman had turned the entire division on its head.”
2. Marc-Phillipe Ngatchou’s Spinning BackFist
Marc-Phillipe Ngatchou vs Yusuf Nazokatov
Cage Warriors 197, November 21, 2025
When you watch Cage Warriors shows, it pays to be watching from the first fight to the last, because the highlight-reel moments come up and down the fight card. One of Cage Warriors’ finishes of 2025 came mid-way through the preliminary card at Cage Warriors 197, as a German prospect making only the third appearance of his pro career delivered a show-stopper of a KO in Manchester.
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