Video: 2 sleepy rounds, then a sudden finish for Kajan Johnson in UFC 215's opener

If you missed the fight between Kajan Johnson and Adriano Martins to kick off today’s UFC 215 prelims, maybe do yourself a favor and skip to the third round on the replay.

That’s our polite way of saying that the first two rounds would serve as an effective sleep aid, but it wasn’t from a lack of effort on Martins’ (28-9 MMA, 4-3 UFC) part. The Brazilian did the majority of the work in the first two frames, chasing after Johnson (22-12-1 MMA, 3-1 UFC) as he did a quick tour of the octagon’s perimeter.

In the first 10 minutes of action, Johnson threw just 29 strikes, according to FightMetric. By comparison, Martins threw 30 just in the second round alone.

But as we were reminded in the third, it’s not always how many you throw, but what you do with them (via Twitter):

Johnson proved that in the opening minute of the final round, as he caught a Martins kick and landed a right hand that seemed to glance off Martins’ ear. At first it looked more like a miss than a hit, but then Martins hit the mat and froze there in a full system shutdown.

Even Johnson seemed a tad bit confused after he followed up with two right hands to prompt the knockout stoppage, at which point he moved toward the center of the cage for the first time all night, seeming to mouth the words: “What happened?”

The answer is that Johnson got his first win in almost exactly two years. And if you only pay attention to the highlights, it’s a pretty good one.

For more on UFC 215, check out the UFC Events section of the site.

The Blue Corner is MMAjunkie‘s official blog and is edited by Mike Bohn.