Mark Hunt beaten by Fabricio Werdum UFC 180: Re-live the action

MARK ‘Super Samoan’ Hunt has fallen to Fabricio Werdum in the second round of UFC 180 for the interim heavyweight title. Re-live the action here.

Werdum beats Hunt via TKO in UFC180

MARK Hunt never saw the knee coming.

And you know the saying about the ones you don’t see, right?

In a city notorious for drugs, kidnappings and tap water so toxic even the locals won’t drink it, Hunt found something else to cause nightmares in Mexico City - the right knee of Brazilian Fabricio Werdum.

An assault as ferocious as it was unexpected.

FEMALE UFC FIGHTER ALMOST LOSES EAR

Mark Hunt battles against Brazil's Fabricio Werdum.

Having dominated the first round, and looking strong in the second, Hunt was again moving forward with intent – keen, judging by the low positioning of his head, to win the UFC heavyweight title with an overhand right.

Then, whoooshka - that jumping Werdum knee found his peroxided melon.

For Hunt, the lowered head positioning was the tiniest of mistakes. His receipt: the heaviest of knees.

Mark Hunt gets on top of Fabricio Werdum from during a UFC 180 interim Heavyweight title fight.

“It’s the ones you don’t see,’’ Hunt conceded afterwards.

“And I didn’t see that one.”

But still, the Campbelltown 40-year-old wasn’t finished.

Sure, he had taken this fight late. Overweight. Given only three weeks - without carbs, sparring or any hope from the bookies – to take on a rival who boasted two months preparing to fight here 2200m above sea level.

But Hunt is a fighter.

Mark Hunt has been defeated in UFC 180.

A Sydney father-of-six who has spent his entire life being looked down upon, told he wasn’t good enough. Then gone and proved otherwise.

And so, as he fell to the ground, Werdum in hot pursuit, the veteran brawler got his arms in front of his face. Preparing, desperately, to defend.

The task, however, proved too much.

Werdum hammering away with a series of heavy blows that, moments later, saw the bout waved off.

New Zealand's Mark Hunt, left, battles against Brazil's Fabricio Werdum.

“But no excuses,’’ Hunt shrugged afterwards.

“It was hard getting down here but I got caught.”

Then, with wry grin, the man who had been forced to leave his wife and children on two day’s notice, added: “Now I just have to go home and fix my marriage. Go home and see my kids.”

And so here on the other side of the world, they will tell you the Cinderella story is done.

Mark Hunt is beaten in the second round.

That Hunt’s incredible rise from south Auckland street fighter – the kid whose first professional fight purse, at 16, was a six-pack of beer – is now done courtesy of that jumping right knee 2 minutes and 27 seconds into the second round.

But they would be wrong.

Because this is a story about a man who changed his life through fighting.

A change nobody saw coming.

Re-live the action here:

Originally published as Mark Hunt beaten by Fabricio Werdum UFC 180: Re-live the action