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#3 Charlie Brenneman
The previous two fighters on our list all managed their proverbial “one hit” in the UFC in their first fight with the promotion, whereas former Lock Haven wrestler Brenneman pulled off his biggest win in his fourth fight in the Octagon. It was a huge win, but ‘The Spaniard’ never came close to finding one as big in his later UFC days and ended his career with a UFC record of 4-7.
Brenneman entered the UFC with a reputation as a stifling wrestler and picked up two wins – dull decisions – over Jason High and Amilcar Alves, sandwiching a knockout loss to Johny Hendricks. The win that changed his career came next – Rick Story, on a six-fight win streak at the time, was supposed to fight Nate Marquardt in the main event of UFC on Versus 4, but Marquardt was busted for elevated testosterone and removed from the card on the day of the weigh-in.
Brenneman took the fight on less than a day’s notice, and as coincidence would have it, had the perfect style to take out Story – he outwrestled, outhustled and out-bullied him to a lopsided decision. The win was huge and threw Brenneman into the Welterweight title picture, but a head kick loss to Anthony Johnson in his next fight threw him right back out again. He bounced back with a win over Daniel Roberts, but UFC losses to Erick Silva, Kyle Noke, Danny Castillo, Beneil Dariush and Leandro Silva ended his Octagon run on a low note.
It may have been the case that styles make fights and Brenneman’s was perfect to counter Rick Story’s, but not any of the other top 170lbers, but the win was huge at the time and means ‘The Spaniard’ definitely belongs on our list of one-hit wonders in the UFC.
