Charles Johnson made sure he didn’t forget where he was.
Moments after finishing late sub opponent Eduardo Chapolin at 1:36 of the third round of their prelim bout, the St. Louis-based flyweight acknowledged the local crowd by ID’ing himself as a long-time fan of the city’s wildly popular NFL team and belting out a few lines of the team’s signature “Fly Eagles Fly” fight song.
He’d already won the gathered masses over with just the second submission by “Scottish twister” in UFC history, following Murtazali Magomedov’s submission of Melsik Baghdasaryan on a Fight Night show in Las Vegas two months ago.
Johnson, who’d tapped out opponents by kimura, brabo choke and anaconda choke in a pro career stretching back 10 years, secured the rare victory amid a third-round scramble in which he tried to take Chapolin’s back in a standing position—then wrapped his legs around the Brazilian’s torso as Chapolin tried to escape, and wrenched the 30-year-old’s head to the left to draw the surrender.
“Once I get my legs in,” Johnson said, “it’s over with.”
Analyst Daniel Cormier, who’d called Magomedov’s win from cage-side two months ago, insisted he saw it coming.
“I didn’t know what it was,” Cormier said, “I know what it is now.”
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