Sherdog’s Top 10: One and Dones

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5. Danny Lafever
Ultimate Ring Challenge 6
Oct. 25, 2003 | Longview, Wash.
If you are wondering who Lafever is and why he is on this list next to accomplished and well-known athletes like Ramon Dekker and Karam Ibrahim, you have a pair of salient questions. Even a win over Benji Radach would not seem, on its own, to merit inclusion.

Context is everything here. Lafever was not a former professional kickboxer or wrestler, and he had zero name value coming into the bout; instead, he was a local tough guy who reportedly had some amateur boxing experience but nothing of any real quality on his record. He was effectively pulled out of the crowd to face Radach, with whom he had some sort of dispute over a woman, to fight on a local show in Washington State promoted by UFC veteran Dennis Hallman.

Although it is easy to forget now, Radach was a big-time prospect back in 2003. He owned a record of 15-1, with 12 knockouts, and had Team Quest, then one of the biggest and most accomplished teams in MMA, at his back. He had beaten Gustavo Machado, whose only previous loss was to Ricardo Arona, two months before and needed less than two minutes to do it.

It came as quite the shock, then, when Radach ate a straight right to the jaw that left him stone cold on the canvas 55 seconds into the bout. Lafever celebrated wildly, as befits a man who just scored one of the greatest upsets in the history of the sport, and the crowd nearly rioted. Lafever never competed in MMA again, and while Radach had some later success, the shine was officially off the hot prospect.

Number 4 » He was one of the best baseball players of the late 1980s and early 1990s, consistently posting offensive numbers in the top echelon of the major leagues and bombing home runs with shocking ease.