Following a brutal illegal knee strike from Petr Yan at UFC 259, Aljamain Sterling laid on the canvas in obvious agony for several minutes as he attempted to recover while both the referee and the ringside physician were hovering over him.
Sterling was given time to clear his head in order to see if he could continue the fight but it was clear the sheer force of the shot he absorbed did a lot of damage. Finally with Sterling still on the mat, referee Mark Smith made the call to stop the fight before disqualifying Yan for committing a deliberate foul.