When Edson Barboza got knocked out by Justin Gaethje on March 30th for all of ESPN to see we were admittedly surprised. We thought this would be one of those wars that received a standing ovation no matter who managed to win out in the end.
We were obviously wrong.
Edson’s coach Anderson Franca was surprised too but not at the result as much as how it came about. He posted this photo of a very nasty eye poke from Gaethje that would make Chuck Liddell and Jon Jones proud. He also infers that had this not occurred his fighter may have come out on top instead.
Did it lead to the KO? We will never know if Justin was destined to win or did that poke changed everything?