Michael McDonald was losing most of his bantamweight bout against Masanori Kanehara, and it was looking like his return from a 2-year layoff will end up badly for him. The Japanese champ seemed to have secured an arm triangle choke, until McDonald exploded and pulled off an impressive transition to the back and finished the fight.
Watch the crazy sequence below:
Here's the play-by-play of the 2nd round from our live blog:
R2: McDonald keeps Kanehara at bay with front kicks but Kanehara ducks under the first punch and hits a takedown. Kanehara methodically passes to full mount, then snakes into an arm-triangle. It looks deep but McDonald virtually teleports into back control, somehow. An unreal transition, and McDonald sinks in the rear-naked choke. Kanehara taps.
Michael McDonald defeats Masanori Kanehara by submission (rear-naked choke) R2 2:09