Manoel Sousa's crushing victory over Oki is nothing short of electric and exhilarating for his devoted followers.
After he got poked in the eye, Manoel Sousa turned on the gas and put away Bolaji Oki at UFC Fight Night 269.
LAS VEGAS – Manoel Sousa met the media Saturday after his win over Bolaji Oki at UFC Fight Night 269. Sousa (14-1 MMA, 1-0 UFC) delivered a brutal knockout of Oki (10-4 MMA, 2-3 UFC) in the third round on the prelims at the Meta APEX in Las Vegas. Sousa took a bad poke in the eye in the third round, but after he recovered it wasn't long until he found the finish with Oki up against the fence.
Sousa was down two rounds on one of the judge's scorecards, and it was even on the other two, so he may have been on his way to a loss absent the knockout. "Of all the fights I've had – kickboxing, muay Thai, amateur – I've never been poked in the eye like that, but everything's fine now," Sousa said at his post-fight news conference. "I think after the eye poke, I felt it actually made me most laser-focused.
It became even more visible to me what I needed to do – that I needed to go for it all. We knew what we needed to do to make it happen. " When he made it happen, it also came with a $100,000 bonus in his promotional debut – which no doubt is several times what his take-home pay was for his first fight in the UFC, post-DWCS.
Check out Sousa's post-fight interview in the video above. This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Eye poke fueled Manoel Sousa to vicious Oki KO in UFC debut