If there were any questions about how Cain Velasquez would return from his first professional defeat, they were put to rest with an exclamation point.
The former UFC heavyweight champion put Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva down early and brutalized him for the entirety of the fight until drawing a referee stoppage at UFC 146.
The first-round TKO win took just 3:36.
“I feel good, a step in the right direction,” Velasquez said afterward. “Daniel Cormier my teammate, fought Silva, and he told me some things that helped tonight.”
Silva was never in the fight. Velasquez took him down in the fight’s opening seconds and opened a cut on his head with an elbow soon after. Velasquez worked the cut with subsequent elbows, and the wound spurted blood down SIlva’s face and soon darkened the mat around them. It ended up being one of the bloodiest fights in recent UFC history.
Ref Josh Rosnethal at one point stopped the action to have it checked, but the cageside doctor let the fight continue.
Restarted in the same position, it was more of the same for Velasquez, who finally finished Silva after a hail of left hands from the top.
It was just the kind of performance Velasquez needed in his first fight since losing the title to Junior dos Santos.
“Just to know what you’ve done in the past, get over that and a step in the right direction, get better,” he said.
It was the 10th pro win for Velasquez to go with one defeat.
In losing his UFC debut, Silva dropped to 16-4.