It’s hard to find 90 seconds of fighting more eventful than what went down between Tim Johnson and Danilo Marques at Thursday’s PFL card.
And it all started with low blow that was downright mesmerizing.
Two minutes into the first round, Johnson connected on a hard left hook that left Marques reeling and open for a finish. Unfortunately, at the exact same moment Johnson’s first made contact, Marques landed a right kick into Johnson’s groin.
Both fighters went down simultaneously, with Marques getting up first. Marques briefly began celebrating, before realizing Johnson was about to get all the time he needed to recover.
Johnson eventually did recover and stayed in the fight. The next minutes or so went very badly for Marques, whom Johnson leveled into the fence with a right, then went to work as his opponent tried to get back to his feet.
The pair eventually reached the ground, where Johnson got Marques into a seatbelt hold and ended it with repeated punches to the head.
As Johnson explained after the fight, he had no idea that he could have finished the fight even earlier had it not been for the groin strike:
“I had no idea that I had even landed … That hurt. That was definitely the worst groin strike I’ve ever had. I didn’t know, I just head everyone booing. I was like ‘I’m sorry guys, I got kicked in the groin, I’m trying.’ But then I found out they were booing at Danilo, so whatever.”
The whole thing was quite a PFL debut for Johnson, who said he was hauling livestock in a truck 14 days before the fight. The 39-year-old heavyweight is both a UFC and Bellator veteran, holding a career 18-9 record.
However he got there, it was also a good start for Johnson in the PFL standings, as he took away a maximum six points from the fight thanks to his first-round finish.
