Khaos Williams knows the hype train is about to get rolling.
And for good reason: He’s yet to put in a minute of cage time in two UFC fights, but he’s got two knockout victories and two “Performance of the Night” bonuses to his name.
The welterweight out of Detroit scored a sensational knockout of a fellow heavy hitter in Abdul Razak Alhassan, finishing the UFC Fight Night 182 co-main event in just 27 seconds on Saturday night at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. That comes on the heels of his 30-second knockout of Alex Morono in his promotional debut at UFC 247.
Williams (11-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC) knows that’s the type of thing that gets fans excited and media dropping superlatives, but he says there’s no way he will allow himself to get caught up in his own hype.
“One thing about me is I never get comfortable, you know?” Williams said during the UFC Fight Night 182 post-fight news conference. “I never get comfortable. No matter what I do, I got to keep outdoing myself. I got to continue to keep grinding. … I don’t even praise my work too long. I just keep moving forward. This moment’s happening right now, but I still got a long way to go.”
Williams knew he was being pitted with another knockout artist in Alhassan, one who has more experience on the biggest stage than he does. But Williams also came into the fight with confidence in his own abilities,
“I feel like I can knock anybody out, you know?” he said. “I mean, it’s a fight. If you hit someone hard enough, they might be able to knock me out. Who knows? But at the end of the day, we’re all human beings, and like I said before, metaphorically speaking nobody is bulletproof. You hit me the hard way, I hit you the hard way, you go down.”
An excited UFC president Dana White chatted with Williams after the knockout, and the fighter shared what his promoter had to say.
“He was like, that was one of the greatest knockouts he’s seen,’” Williams said. “It was pretty impressive, especially who I knocked out. You get what I’m saying? As far as he’s a knockout artist himself, he’s got 10 first-round knockouts, so for me to knock him out that’s pretty impressive.”
Williams is off to exactly the type of UFC start most fighters can only dream of. He knows the attention is on its way. The way he sees it, if you want to get on his bandwagon, cool. If not, cool. He knows what he can do either way.
“They can, they cannot, that’s up to them,” Williams said. “All I know is what I believe in, and it’s not really about them. Its about what I believe and my mindset, but at the end of the day, they know what’s going on.”
UFC Fight Night 182’s Khaos Williams won’t buy into own hype after second consecutive quick KO
