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Cory Sandhagen talks about perfecting the spinning heel kick he stopped Marlon Moraes with at UFC Fight Island 5 on Saturday.
UFC Fight Island 5 was a night of spinning kicks. Earlier in the prelims, Joaquin Buckley landed a sensational spinning heel kick right on the face of Impa Kasanganay in what’s already described as the greatest knockout in UFC history.
Top-five bantamweight Cory Sandhagen then capped off Saturday’s night of fights in similar fashion when he landed the same shot on Marlon Moraes head. And like any perfect strike, it didn’t happen without some constant drilling.
As explained by “The Sandman” during the post-fight scrum, he worked on his spinning heel kick technique during the early months of COVID-19 lockdown in the basement of his Colorado home.
.@cors_life made the most of his time in quarantine to practice the fight-ending move from #UFCFightIsland5:
“I was in my basement throwing those spinning back kicks… for those entire two months.”
Watch full video: https://t.co/vDWUY9cn8r pic.twitter.com/Mhk7Lm1fY5
— MMAFighting.com (@MMAFighting) October 11, 2020
“Colorado was shut down for most of March and most of April,” Sandhagen told reporters. “And I was in my basement throwing those spinning back kicks on the Bob, or having my girlfriend hold those spinning kicks for those entire two months. And I added them into my game while there’s nowhere else to go.
“Yeah, I made good use of my time.”
Sandhagen’s win definitely gets him an inch closer to getting the next crack at the belt, but the 28-year-old competitor is willing to wait his turn and have Aljamain Sterling have his shot at Petr Yan, first.