Payton Talbott proved the hype is real by stopping Yanis Ghemmouri in 19 seconds at UFC 303.
The bantamweight phenom opened up as the biggest favourite on the card with the betting line hitting as short as -2500 during fight week.
A perfectly timed right-hand decked Ghemmouri, who banged his head on the Octagon floor, as Talbott moved in and landed brutal ground and pound to finish.
This is despite Talbott creating a video tutorial ahead of fight night detailing exactly how to beat him, which he even translated into his opponent’s native French language.
The tutorial, which is said to run for over 20 minutes, took Talbott and his team around two weeks to produce.
His motivation for the bizarre tactic was to get the ‘best version’ of his foe.
A snippet of it can be found online during which Talbott says: “Big key for Yannis Ghemmouri, if you’re listening, the way for you to beat me is to take my legs away.
“Just kick me as much as you can. It will serve you well. Please throw more than two strikes at a time.
“Nobody likes watching a slow-paced fight. The counter will be hard to land if you only throw 1-2 strikes.
“I know you are listening because it’s in your foreign tongue. Get those quick kicks going.
“Yannis good luck to you, I’m looking forward to our night of work together.”
During a recent appearance on the MMA Hour, Talbott said: “I figured somebody would send it to him, especially if it was in his language.
“I don’t think he speaks very good English because of the way his last fight got stopped. I don’t think he understood the ref…
“I want to fight the best version of him and still prevail.
“So that’s just me saying, ‘Hey, dude. You want to beat me? This is a way to do it. And I hope you try as hard as you can.’”
