Erick Silva dedicates UFC Fight Night 36 win – including reverse heel kicks – to son

JARAGUA DO SUL, Brazil – Erick Silva‘s up-and-down UFC tenure continued on Saturday night, but back on the plus side again.

Silva (16-4 MMA, 4-3 UFC) stopped Takenori Sato (17-9-7 MMA, 0-1 UFC) in short order, knocking him out just 52 seconds into their main-card welterweight bout at UFC Fight Night 36. The win featured a unique pair of strikes that helped lead to Sato’s demise – which came with the Japanese newcomer holding on to a single-leg takedown that never got finished while he ate punches in bunches from Silva.

UFC Fight Night 36 took place at Arena Jaragua in Jaragua do Sul, Santa Catarina, Brazil. The main card aired on FOX Sports 1 following prelims on UFC Fight Pass.

After the fight, Silva said he told his son before the fight that the win was going to be for him.

“I was thrilled, obviously, because I won,” Silva said at the post-event news conference. “But the biggest issue was that I dedicated this victory to my son. Before coming here, I spoke to him and said I was going to dedicate my victory to him. I was thinking about him all the time in camp, when I went into the octagon – my mouthguard has his name on it. I just remembered him all the time. It made me cry. I just couldn’t hold back my tears. It was really very special for me.”

So, too, was getting back in the win column. Silva debuted in the UFC in August 2011 with a first-round knockout of Luis Ramos in just 40 seconds. But things went sideways in his follow-up fight. He thought he had a 29-second knockout of Carlo Prater, but his punches were ruled illegal ones to the back of the head and he lost by DQ.

He returned six months later and got a “Submission of the Night” bonus against Charlie Brenneman, also in the first round. But after that, he ran into a stifling Jon Fitch, who grinded him out for 15 minutes in Brazil.

The win-lose pattern continued this past June, when he again got a submission bonus for stopping Jason High in 71 seconds. But then he was stopped for the first time in his career with a single Dong Hyun Kim punch this past October.

Following his pattern, a win was almost assured for him against Sato – and he was a heavy favorite, to boot. But Silva said he wasn’t feeling any particular stress heading into the fight.

“I didn’t feel any pressure, but I felt some motivation,” he said. “My last fight pushed me forward to work out a lot. I was working for three months to be here. This was the best camp I’ve had. You can be sure that I’m going to go back to my camp and work very hard to show you all a good performance (next time) like I did tonight.”

Against Sato, Silva drew plenty of attention. He landed a kick to the body that Sato clearly felt, and when the Japanese fighter dropped down looking for a single-leg takedown, Silva was forced to try to escape.

To do so, while trying to spin out, he tossed a pair of reverse heel kicks at Sato, hitting him twice in the head. He followed those unique strikes up with a barrage of punches to Sato’s temple, and the newcomer was basically out on his knees, still holding on to the single-leg that never came. (Check out the video highlights of the onslaught here.)

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone do that in a fight, that kick I did,” Silva said. “That’s something we’ve done many times in camp, and I’d already seen myself in that situation where my opponent has his head down, holding my leg, and I have to find a way to hit him. So I gave him a back ankle. I’ve been able to do that in my camp. Whoever saw the open workouts saw I did it – I even did it in the open workout, a back kick with my heel. If it works in the workout, I was able to do it in the octagon. I think he did feel it.”

Silva felt it, since it helped carry him back to the win column and a “Performance of the Night” $50,000 bonus, his fourth bonus in the UFC. His boss, UFC President Dana White, took notice, as well. Beyond the bonus he gave him, White tweeted that Silva’s heel kicks were “awesome.”

For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 36, check out the UFC Events section of the site.

John Morgan contributed to this report.