5 fighters who were one and done in the UFC

#3 Sean Gannon

Sean Gannon beat Kimbo Slice in a street brawl to earn a UFC opportunity

Back in the early 2000’s, when Youtube hadn’t even taken off as a thing, a certain street fighter rose to fame when tapes of his backyard brawling went viral on the internet. His name? Kimbo Slice of course. People were talking about Kimbo coming to the UFC for a couple of years, but before he even took an MMA fight, one man stopped his hype train.

That man was Sean ‘The Cannon’ Gannon – a Boston cop and amateur MMA fighter. Gannon took on Slice in an unsanctioned fight and defeated him when Kimbo couldn’t answer a 30-count (!) following a knockdown. And shockingly, this led him to be signed by the UFC for a debut at UFC 55 in late 2005, despite a professional record of just 2-0.

Nobody was surprised when Gannon turned out to be nowhere near a UFC-level fighter. Matched with fellow debutant Branden Lee Hinkle, he was taken down and quickly pounded into a bloody heap before the referee stopped the fight in the first round. Clearly, there was a big difference between a street fight and a legitimate MMA competition, and Gannon just wasn’t ready for the latter.

He was released after the loss and hasn’t fought in professional MMA since – and in a twist of fate it was Kimbo who went on to massive fame in the Elite XC promotion and later the UFC and Bellator, despite numerous embarrassing losses.