Facing the overwhelming aura radiating from Dennis Bermudez, Yogan did not retreat.
His feet seemed rooted to the Octagon's canvas as if nailed in place.
He was, just as Coach Javier had said, a reef battered by ocean waves for thousands of years—unmoved, unbroken, waiting for the storm to strike.
In the final heartbeat before impact, Yogan made subtle, almost imperceptible adjustments to his footwork.
His body dipped slightly, center of gravity dropping, hands coming up to shield his chest in a textbook-perfect defensive stance.
It was a pose of both defiance and calculation.
Less than a meter from contact, Bermudez suddenly dropped his level and exploded into a lightning-fast double-leg shot, aiming straight for Yogan's thighs—a classic opening maneuver from his NCAA Division I wrestling days.
Fast. Sudden. Brutally powerful.
But as Bermudez launched, Yogan's Godlike Reflexes engaged.
His brain didn't even have to think.
The hardwired, battle-scarred muscle memory he'd forged under years of Khabib-style wrestling drills moved first.
Sprawl.
A sprawl worthy of an instructional video.
Yogan's legs shot back like coiled springs, his entire upper body pressing downward like a mountain onto Bermudez's shoulders and neck.
It was as if a heavy truck going full throttle had slammed into a steel wall.
Momentum destroyed.
A shockwave of recoil rippled up Bermudez's spine, making his cervical vertebrae feel as though they had been struck by a hammer.
A deafening gasp swept the arena.
At cageside, Joe Rogan's eyes went wide.
"Oh my God! Look at that takedown defense! Perfect sprawl!"
Bermudez snarled like a bull denied its charge, arm muscles bulging as he tried to straighten his posture and rip Yogan's leg off the mat.
But Yogan's technique—refined by DC and Cain at AKA, improved over thousands of repetitions—was too advanced.
A subtle hip rotation outward erased Bermudez's leverage.
Meanwhile, Yogan's left hand, like an iron cuff, clamped onto Bermudez's head, preventing him from lifting it to generate power.
They wrestled against the cage for ten grinding seconds, power and skill colliding at their peak.
Bermudez's face flushed crimson from the exertion, sweat dripping onto the mat, but the takedown would not come.
Finally, under Herb Dean's warning to "Move!," Bermudez had no choice but to release and retreat to center.
The exchange had produced no points but sent a thunderous message to everyone watching:
Yogan's takedown defense was far beyond expectation.
This was no longer "rapid improvement."
This was prodigy territory.
Bermudez refused to accept it.
He inhaled sharply, eyes blazing hotter, and attacked again.
This time he layered in feints—mock punches up top, direction changes—trying to trick Yogan before shooting for a faster single-leg.
Yogan remained calm.
His upper body stayed in a high guard; his eyes tracked Bermudez's every twitch.
His base was solid as a mountain, unshaken by feints.
The moment Bermudez's hand grazed his thigh, Yogan delivered a beautifully timed, devastating knee to the chest.
Thud!
The sound echoed—a muffled hammer blow.
Again Bermudez's offense crumbled.
Yogan immediately capitalized, snapping a lightning-fast left jab straight to the bridge of Bermudez's nose.
Crack.
Blood trickled instantly.
Nothing enrages a pure wrestler more than being stuffed and then struck in his own domain.
The humiliation burned worse than a head kick.
For the next three minutes, Round One turned into a suffocating clinic in wrestling offense versus defense.
Bermudez, a perpetual-motion machine, chained takedown attempts: double-legs, single-legs, body locks, fence drags—textbook NCAA wrestling unleashed.
Yogan, combining AKA's hybrid defense (American freestyle, Russian sambo, Brazilian jiu-jitsu) with his freakish reflexes, surfed each wave like a master.
He anticipated direction, adjusted angles, and denied every entry.
Seven takedown attempts.
Zero successes.
Meanwhile, each defensive counter from Yogan included precise, surgical strikes and low kicks.
Every punch landed squarely on Bermudez's now-bleeding nose, blurring his vision.
Each low kick crashed into his lead leg, building invisible damage.
When the horn sounded, twenty thousand fans rose spontaneously, applauding.
They had just witnessed one of the most thrilling rounds of pure offense-versus-defense in UFC history.
Bermudez staggered to his stool, gasping like a beached whale.
Blood and sweat covered half his face.
Coaches shouted instructions but he barely heard, his unfocused eyes locked on Yogan across the cage—anger and desperation swirling.
His mental state was cracking.
Yogan, too, felt the cost.
His chest rose and fell heavily from defending such relentless pressure.
But DC grinned like a proud bear, handing him a bottle.
"Well done, kid! You're destroying his will! His gas tank's empty. Keep this up—he'll make mistakes."
Javier pressed an ice pack to Yogan's neck, cooling him quickly.
"He'll be even crazier next round. Don't brawl. Make him chase you. Now you're the hunter. We drilled this tens of thousands of times—seize the moment."
Yogan swallowed hard, feeling the ice sink into his skin.
He shook his head violently, eyes flashing with wisdom and ruthlessness.
He knew the turning point had arrived.
The bell rang for Round Two.
Bermudez charged like a berserk monster, his technique unraveling.
No more feints.
Head down.
Pure force—like a football player trying to bowl someone over.
Yogan obeyed Javier's plan.
He didn't try to hold ground as before.
He used the Octagon's space, gliding with ghostlike lateral movement, a fusion of boxing footwork and traditional martial arts.
Suddenly the fight resembled an elegant, violent dance.
Bermudez thundered forward like a runaway tank.
Yogan became the matador, escaping by inches, sliding out at the last instant, punishing the exposed leg with vicious low kicks.
One. Two. Three.
Each impact was like a baseball bat slamming shin.
A large purplish-red welt bloomed on Bermudez's left leg.
His speed faltered. His tracking turned erratic.
Midway through the round, Bermudez's breathing was audible even to ringside fans—a ragged bellows.
Frustration and exhaustion carved lines into his face.
Then he gambled everything.
A hoarse roar.
All remaining energy poured into one last attack.
He lunged, finally wrapping up one of Yogan's legs.
For a heartbeat, triumph flashed in Bermudez's eyes.
He hugged Yogan's leg tight, lifting to finish the takedown—a belated salvage of pride.
But in focusing so hard on the leg, he committed the cardinal sin of high-level grappling: his head and temple were completely exposed within Yogan's striking range.
Now.
A razor glint lit Yogan's eyes.
The moment he had drilled tens of thousands of times was here—clear, inevitable, perfect.
His reflexes peaked.
Time slowed to syrup.
He saw every detail: Bermudez's neck muscles straining, mouth gaping for oxygen, the vulnerable left temple glistening with sweat.
It was exactly as Javier had rehearsed.
An opponent's takedown was the perfect setup for the Muay Thai clinch.
Yogan's body reacted on instinct.
He did not fight the grip on his leg.
Instead, he balanced on one leg like a golden rooster—terrifying core strength and balance—while both hands snapped around Bermudez's neck like iron shackles.
The Muay Thai clinch locked in.
Bermudez's excitement flipped to terror.
His head was trapped.
He could not lift it.
He could not escape.
Yogan planted his supporting foot, leaned slightly back, coiling power through his hips.
His free right leg bent at the knee, rising into the air.
All that torque channeled into the point of his knee.
Whirr—!
It was less a strike than a cannonball fired point-blank.
A counter knee as fast as a blink, guided unerringly to its target.
Under the iron pull of Yogan's arms, the knee smashed into Bermudez's skull.
Crack!!
The sound—picked up by every microphone—made even hardened fans flinch.
Pure, simple, devastating: knee to skull.
Time froze.
The madness in Bermudez's eyes flickered out, replaced by dull emptiness.
His grip on Yogan's leg loosened.
Like a puppet whose strings had been cut, his body collapsed backward onto the mat, sweat scattering.
Knockout.
One strike.
For a heartbeat the arena was silent.
Then twenty thousand voices erupted, the roof trembling.
Referee Herb Dean dove in, arms wide, halting the fight.
Yogan made no follow-up; he knew the moment the knee landed it was over.
He calmly retracted his leg, standing alone in the Octagon, right hand rising to meet the deafening roar.
Still the stubborn reef.
And the surging wave had shattered against him.
Team Yogan flooded the cage.
DC scooped him up like a child, hoisting him onto his shoulders, parading him around as the crowd chanted his name.
Coach Javier, usually stone-faced, grinned wildly, pounding his fists against the cage mesh.
The image was indelible:
the silent warrior, the relentless storm, and the knee that ended it all—an attack-and-defense duel destined for UFC history.
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