5 one-hit wonders in the UFC

#2 David Terrell

David Terrell fought just once more after this loss to Evan Tanner

When you’re talking about one-hit wonders and missed prospects in the UFC, they don’t come much better than David Terrell. ‘The Soul Assassin’ came into the UFC with much hype in 2004; an MMA record of 4-1 wasn’t that extensive, but his grappling background was incredible as he’d won all sorts of tournaments and had apparently never even had a point scored on him in jiu-jitsu competition, despite facing some incredible competition.

For his first UFC fight, he was matched with Matt Lindland, a man who most observers saw at the time as the uncrowned Middleweight champion – at the time he’d lost twice in the UFC, one fluke to Niko Vitale that saw Lindland KO himself, and one loss to then-champion Murilo Bustamante. Outside of that, he’d been perfect with seven wins. That was until Terrell uncorked a huge left hand and knocked him unconscious in 24 seconds.

The MMA world was set ablaze by the win as of course, Terrell was supposed to be a grappler, not a striker. The UFC were impressed too and quickly set up a fight for the vacant Middleweight title between Terrell and Evan Tanner. But despite a super-fast start in the title match, Terrell ran out of steam and succumbed to Tanner’s ground-and-pound. It would be the last time we’d see him for well over a year – something which would become a pattern, although at the time we didn’t know it.

Terrell returned at UFC 59 and choked out newcomer Scott Smith, but it turned out to be his last fight – injuries forced him out of multiple bookings with the UFC, including two fights with Yushin Okami and one with Ed Herman, and his problems became both extensive and weird – at one point he had his ear removed and reattached in order to fight a bad infection. He remains the standard bearer in MMA for missed potential as his injuries reduced him to the definition of a one-hit wonder.