PVZ can kick – discusses her ‘Kick the Can’ KO of the Night

UFC strawweight ‘Rowdy’ Bec Rawlings won the first round vs. Paige VanZant on Saturday night, on the main card of UFC on FOX 21. VanZant is usually aggressive, but darted forward and back. Unfortunately, when she got close, she got hit by the heavy handed Aussie.

The second round was another story.

Anthony Pettis has his ‘Showtime Kick’, that dropped on Benson Henderson. Lyoto Machida has his ‘Crane Kick’ that knocked a tooth out of Randy Couture’s mouth. To that pantheon, add the ‘Kick the Can’ that VanZant landed on Rawlings, just 17 seconds into the second.

Kill or be killed. that's the name of the game 😎 I'll be back bitches ✌ Congrats to @PaigeVanzantUFC that kick was👌 pic.twitter.com/CR2rnODct3

— Bec Rodriguez (@RowdyBec) August 28, 2016

“>@PaigeVanZant hits a RIDICULOUS jumping switch roundhouse kick KO! #UFCVancouverhttps://t.co/kXd4hrd3Tx

— FOX Sports: UFC (@UFCONFOX)

.@PaigeVanZant hits a RIDICULOUS jumping switch roundhouse kick KO! #UFCVancouverhttps://t.co/kXd4hrd3Tx

— FOX Sports: UFC (@UFCONFOX) August 28, 2016

“>August 28, 2016

VanZant appeared on the FOX Sports 1 post-fight show, and talked about it.

“We call it a ‘kick the can,’ the one I knocked her out with,” said VanZant, as transcribed by Marc Raimondi for MMA Fighting. “I’ve done that a few times in training camp. I was like, I might as well go out there and use everything in my arsenal.”

“Coming in, I knew that she might have superior boxing than I did and that was something I really wanted to work on for this fight, not immediately closing the distance and trying to rush her, because she would have a really strong right hand. I wanted to kind of keep my distance, feel her out, see what she did, see how she reacted to all my moves and kind of felt it out and got the finish in the second.”

“These are things that I’ve kind of always been capable of, but I never actually used. I heard [Team Alpha Male head coach Justin Buchholz] say, ‘left kick, left kick, left kick,’ and he kept telling me it’s open and I finally decided it’s open and I went for it.”

VanZant, 22, is a model, and highly mediagenic. She came in second on Dancing With The Stars. And to train for Saturday’s fight, she turned down a role in the Kickboxer remake, Kickboxer:Vengeance. Plot – you killed my brother, now I must kill you.

“I took the fight before I even stepped back inside the gym,” said VanZant. “It was definitely a test for me, but I pushed really, really hard. All my teammates saw that I pushed hard the last four weeks of this fight camp and it paid off.”

“I know that people want me because I’m different and if I wasn’t a fighter I wouldn’t be different, I wouldn’t be unique. And people like me because I am an MMA fighter. I’m a chick who fights. That’s why I am desired outside of the Octagon and I knew with the ‘Kickboxer’ movie it would cut into this fight camp and I just had to turn it down. The timing wasn’t gonna work. I wanted to stay focused for this fight.”

It worked out well.

Every front has a back. The hard, sad truth of fighting is that for every spectacular win, there is a spectacular loss. Rawlings, she’s still killin’ it, too.

Kill or be killed. that's the name of the game 😎 I'll be back bitches ✌ Congrats to @PaigeVanzantUFC that kick was👌 pic.twitter.com/CR2rnODct3

— Bec Rodriguez (@RowdyBec) August 28, 2016