Esteban Ribovics, UFC St Louis

Esteban Ribovics head kick KO’s Terrence McKinney early at UFC St Louis

The Ultimate Fighting Championship returned to us tonight, May 11, 2024 for UFC St Louis, going down live from the Enterprise Center in St. Louis, Missouri.

Headlining the event is a heavyweight bout between the UFC’s all-time knockout leader, no. 12 ranked Derrick Lewis (27-12) and the surging no. 15 ranked Rodrigo Nascimento (11-1).

Co-headlining the event is a welterweight showcase between Joaquin Buckley (18-6) and Nursulton Ruziboev (34-8-2).

Our preliminary co-main event came in the lightweight division between a pair of talented finishers in Terrence McKinney (15-7) and Esteban Ribovics (13-1).

McKinney came into the bout on a two-fight win streak, having gone 4-3 thus far into his seven-fight promotional tenure. Ribovics on the other hand had gone 1-1 through two octagon bouts, losing his debut to former PFL lightweight title challenger Loik Radzhabov, and defeating Kamuela Kirk in his latest appearance, each going the distance with those being the only two fights of his career to go to the scorecards.

Continue reading to see how this lightweight encounter went down:

Official Result: Esteban Ribovics def. Terrence McKinney via KO (head kick) at :36 of round one

Going into this fight we knew something had to give; McKinney had finished all 15 of his professional wins going in with seven knockouts and eight submissions, 14 of those finishes coming in the opening round with all six of his defeats also coming inside the distance.

Ribovics on the other hand had seven knockouts and five submissions in his 12-win career to date coming in, where he picked up his eighth career knockout victory with this stunning head kick.

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Brady Ordway
I became a fan of combat sports when I was 12 years old. I was scrolling through the channels and landed upon Versus, where WEC was televised. Urijah Faber fought Jens Pulver for the second time that night. That's the first fight I ever saw, and I was immediately hooked. So eventually, I began covering the sport in the fourth quarter of 2018, and have since started writing about animals as well. If you'd like to see those pieces, be sure to check out learnaboutnature.com!