Anything can happen in a fight, or so the hated cliche goes.
However, there were some fights in the (short) history of MMA where fans didn’t think anything could happen. The results of these fights were predetermined in people’s minds before the bell rung.
But the people were wrong about these fights, these fights that surprised even the most grizzled MMA fan.
Whether an underdog pulled out the victory or a superior fighter performed terribly, there have been performances in MMA that were truly surprising and that also showed the MMA world why we keep resorting to that same tired cliche stated above.
Some of these performances are already well known (Georges St.Pierre vs. Matt Serra, Gabriel Gonzaga vs. Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic, and Fedor Emelianenko vs. Fabricio Werdum) and won’t be further beaten to death here.
So what are the other surprising performances that aren’t frequently referred to in such lists? Read and find out (but keep in mind it’s difficult to quantify surprising, so the fights are listed in chronological order).