AUSTIN, Texas – There was a specific plan in place by Drakkar Klose and his team for Joe Solecki.
Put simply: Don’t give him your back at UFC on ESPN 52.
“We knew he was a tough guy on the ground and we worked a lot on not letting him take my back,” Klose told MMA Junkie after the fight. “I guess it paid off. I didn’t let him take my back.”
Klose figured he’d have to wrestle, and his preference was to slug it out on the feet. He said he had a brief conversation with Solecki about it at their ceremonial weigh-in faceoff at Moody Center in Austin, Texas, and thought they were on the same page.
So when Klose, in the first round, found himself needing to be loosed of Solecki latching on to him, he lifted him from the canvas to try to slam his way free. The result was perhaps the most devastating slam knockout in MMA history, at least from a visual perspective since Solecki’s head was turned to the side, sending the impact straight to his temple.
Klose (14-2-1 MMA, 8-2 UFC) got the fight-ending slam just 101 seconds into the bout and became just the second fighter to knock out Solecki (13-4 MMA, 5-2 UFC). And it sounds like Klose thinks he may have given Solecki his just desserts for the whole wrestling dupe.
“Yesterday at the faceoff, I was like, ‘Man, let’s not f*cking wrestle,'” Klose said. “And he was like, ‘Oh, I’m not’ – but I guess he lied.
“I was just trying to get in his head (at the ceremonial weigh-ins). I was like, ‘F*ck, I want to strike.’ You don’t get paid more money if you just want to sit there and grapple. Fans want to see knockouts. Well, I guess you can knock someone out grappling.”
Klose got a $50,000 bonus for the knockout. The extra check was written virtually the moment Solecki’s head hit the canvas, given it was just the 13th slam KO in the UFC’s 30-year history – an average of one every 2.5 years or so. Through the sheer will of what turned out to be potentially the best event of the year, Cody Brundage got the 14th slam KO in the very next fight.
Klose said he wants to build o the momentum of his highlight-reel slam – which is going to be on UFC sizzle reels basically forever now, and deservedly so. But he hinted that maybe he needs to start calling some of his shots.
“We’ve got another (baby coming) – he should be here February,” Klose said. “I want to stay active, but I want to stay active on my terms. I want to fight on my boy Sean (O’Malley’s) card March 9 (at UFC 299). Hopefully that can happen. (Against) Mark Madsen? No, I’ve got to be realistic – he’s lost two in a row. I don’t know. I always tell Sean Shelby and my manager names and they always come back with somebody totally different. So it’s pretty much whoever they want me to fight.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC on ESPN 52.
