Daniel Cormier and Joe Rogan laud UFC 332 star ‘the biggest power puncher ever’ after devastating KO

There were several big finishes at UFC 332, but there was one in particular that had Daniel Cormier making a big claim.

This past Saturday, the premier MMA promotion returned to Salt Lake City, Utah, for UFC 332, headlined by a women’s flyweight title fight between Natalia Silva and Wang Cong.

The widely criticized card produced 11 finishes from 14 fights, which set a new UFC record for the most finishes on a single event.

And one fighter who contributed to that was highly rated middleweight prospect, Damian Pinas, who knocked out Andrey Pulyaev in just over a minute of the first round.

Explain your pick of the bunch below

‘The Baba Yaga’ was signed by the promotion after a first round knockout on Dana White’s Contender Series last year. Since then, the 24-year-old has competed three times, winning all three of his fights via first round knockouts.

Pinas came into his fight against Pulyaev as the second biggest favorite on the entire card, behind just Jacobe Smith who also scored a first round finish in his fight against Bruce Whitehead.

And after the middleweight’s scary uppercut KO win, Daniel Cormier gave a glowing review of the 24-year-old, claiming that he’s the ‘biggest power puncher’ he has ever seen since becoming a UFC commentator.

“I’ve never seen anything like him, man. I think he might be the single biggest power puncher I’ve seen since we started doing this,” Cormier said during the Paramount+ broadcast.

Cormier’s co-color commentator Joe Rogan backed up that claim, stating that some fighters just have a ‘God-given power’. “There’s guys that just have God-given power. Do you remember Julian Jackson in the boxing days? He would hit guys and just like, ‘What happened?’ Damian Pinas has that. It’s just extraordinary power,” Rogan said.

From the source PINAS POWER UNLEASHED!!! 😱 The Aruban makes swift work of Andrey Pulyaev #UFC332 https://t.co/22i0Qs5P4T

For his spectacular KO, the Suriname native earned himself an additional $100,000 after being awarded Performance of the Night by Dana White. And the 24-year-old will likely be hoping that the win didn’t just earn him $100,000, but potentially a fight against a ranked opponent.

That, though, may come slightly too soon for Pinas, who is almost guaranteed to be part of another big event in the not-so-distant future. He may have earned himself a big-name opponent, though, with Kelvin Gastelum being a name that could be thrown to Pinas.