Josh Emmett details his first-ever KO, says the opponent was “out longer” than Bryce Mitchell

Josh Emmett says his first-ever KO when he was an amateur is still his most ferocious.

Emmett has been known for his KO power in the UFC featherweight division as he has earned four of his ten wins by KO, and when he does knock an opponent out, he usually shuts their lights off. He’s also recorded an incredible 12 knockdowns in 14 UFC fights, including recording four against Felipe Arantes in 2017.

In his last fight, Josh Emmett landed an overhand right that knocked Bryce Mitchell out cold for quite some time at UFC 296. It was a scary scene, but it was nothing new for Emmett who also KO’d Michael Johnson and Ricardo Lamas, but the 38-year-old says his first-ever KO as an amateur is still his scariest.

“They tried to set me up in my amateur fights. They said he was green, definitely not green. My first amateur fight I fought in Fremont in California, in the Bay area against someone from AKA,” Josh Emmett said on Jaxxon Podcast. “He had a bunch of muay Thai fights, Cain Velasquez was there for him, sitting cageside, him, Jon Fitch, Josh Koschek, Phil Baroni, all these guys. This guy is green? But, he ran into me, that was my first knockout, I knocked him out badly. He was out for longer than Bryce like it was bad. It was a bad, bad knockout.”

The opponent appears to be Tito Mendoza, who went 6-2 as an amateur, according to Tapology, but lost to Josh Emmett in his amateur debut. The AKA fighter ended up only having one pro fight in 2016 and lost a decision to Roger Severson.

Emmett says he believes him lifting weights since he was young and fighting with his brother helped develop the power he has today. He also says he has just generally been powerful and doesn’t think his power is going away anytime soon.

Josh Emmett is currently ranked sixth at featherweight and returned to the win column at UFC 296 with the vicious KO win over Bryce Mitchell. Before that, Emmett dropped a lopsided decision to Ilia Topuria, and to begin 2023, he suffered a submission loss to Yair Rodriguez for the interim title.

Emmett currently does not have his next fight booked, but after his KO win over Mitchell will be in line for a massive scrap next time out.