UFC fighter Uriah Hall has had a lot of pressure to perform heaped on him over the years. He arrived in the organization through The Ultimate Fighter 17, and was hyped by UFC prez Dana White as “the next Anderson Silva.” That comparison came after Hall hit one of his opponents on the show with a spinning hook kick that knocked him out and shattered his jaw.
Alas, Hall struggled moving forward. He lost in The Ultimate Fighter finals and then struggled through his next several fights, losing some and not impressing many with those he won. But now it seems like the Uriah Hall hype train is picking up steam again. Hall took on crafty veteran Gegard Mousasi this past weekend at UFC Fight Night Japan and managed to tap into his bag of spinning death moves, hitting his opponent with a jumping back kick and following it up with a flying knee. It was the first time in Mousasi’s 12-year history that the fighter has ever been finished with strikes.
This puts Hall back in the spotlight as a prospect to watch, and maybe this time he’ll manage to live up to the hype. Most of the people in the know have said Uriah Hall’s biggest issue is Uriah Hall, in that he needs to get his head right if he wants to stop choking and excel in the cage. A win over a fighter like Mousasi might give him a bit of the confidence he needs to keep throwing these devastating spinning kicks.
And hey, at the very least, one brutal gravity defying Knockout of the Year candidate every 2-3 years ain’t too bad of a legacy for a fighter. Even if he’s not the next Anderson Silva, his fighting career will live on in .GIF form across the internet for years to come.
