Khamzat Chimev grinned with a smile of pure menace in the seconds before his 25 minutes of domination started.
The scariest man in the scariest sport in the world knew what everybody else was about to find out, namely that he is too strong, talented and relentless for anyone his bosses put before him.
Never has the UFC had a champion as significant an underdog as South Africa’s Dricus Du Plessis was ahead of this headliner in Chicago.
And the bookies were proved absolutely correct. Chimaev rag-dolled, pummelled and manhandled the champion with alarming ease.
The opening round set a pattern that would be repeated for almost the entirety of the fight.
The Chechen-born Swede marched forward, secured a takedown and spent the rest of the time either smothering his opponent or ending up in the crucifix position.
Dricus Du Plessis was dominated by Khamzat Chimaev (bottom) over five rounds
The new champion barely broke sweat, such was his complete control in the fight at UFC 319
Du Plessis was on the flat of his back for the vast majority of every round in Chicago
Both arms trapped and a face exposed, there was almost nothing Du Plessis could do except tuck his face into the midriff of Chimaev to avoid the kind of heavy artillery that would stop the fight.
Still, spirits in the corner were high between the first couple of rounds, despite the one-sided nature of the contest.
Du Plessis felt he could still claw his way back into it. That brightness soon dulled when Chimaev, seemingly with as much energy as he’d began with, simply hauled his man down to the mat again and again and again.
The 20,000 capacity crowd were not particularly enjoying themselves.
Du Plessis defended the submission attempts smartly and as a spectacle, Chimaev’s domination wasn’t exactly Hollywood stuff.
Marc Goddard, the referee, even stood the fighters up when it could have been argued that the challenger was in a dominant position.
But Du Plessis soon found himself flat on his back once more. There was a brief glimmer of hope in the final stanza.
Du Plessis reversed position, ended up on top and tried a Hail Mary of a guillotine choke that Chimaev slipped out of without fuss.
The stats made for grim reading for the South African and he only landed nine significant strikes
The judges might as well have put their pens down on an easy night’s work, scoring it 50-44.
Surely no title fight has ever racked up so much time on the ground, or ended with one fighter having fewer significant strikes. Du Plessis managed just nine over the course of the fight.
Chimaev is a man of few words, which only adds to the Bond villain allure.
Afterwards he told Joe Rogan: ‘He is very strong, the only champion who would take 25 minutes of that, he is a real lion. I just do what I do in training.’
While the beaten man was magnanimous in defeat, adding: ‘The man has incredible control on top, he’s like a blanket, he always knew what your next move was going to be.
‘At the end I went for it and could almost taste that victory but he beat me fair and square, he deserves it and thanks to all the fans because without you guys we don’t have a job.
Du Plessis battled bravely and managed to avoid being submitted by his opponent
Lerone Murphy defeated Aaron Pico with a stunning spinning elbow earlier in the night
‘Everyone in South Africa, I’m sorry to anybody I let down, we’ll show the world that we’ll come back stronger than ever.’
There’s not much of a case for an immediate rematch despite Du Plessis being the driving force at middleweight for the past couple of years.
Chimaev beat him so convincingly that it is hard to imagine a different scenario next time – though it must be said the pattern is one the new champion has set in stone with almost every fight he has.
Elsewhere on the card, there were extraordinary back-to-back spinning-elbow knockouts.
The finish had only been pulled off eight times in UFC history before Carlos Prates flattened Geoff Neal with it on the main card and Britain’s Lerone Murphy repeated the trick in the very next fight.
He is now almost guaranteed to take on Alexander Volkanovski for the title later this year, which the Australian as good as confirmed online afterwards.
