The book on beating Stephen Thompson has been public since April 2012. Matt Brown took him down repeatedly at UFC 145 and won a unanimous decision in Thompson’s second UFC fight. Brown told The Fighter vs. The Writer this week that once he started shooting, his thought was “this guy’s not strong at all.” Shavkat Rakhmonov submitted Thompson in 2023. Get him on the fence, get him on the mat, keep him from building that long-range karate rhythm.
Charles Radtke (12-6) walked into Madison Square Garden on Saturday with that exact plan, and for most of a round it worked. By the third, he was eating kicks he couldn’t see coming. At 2:54 of Round 3, Thompson spun him to the canvas and retired on one of the best finishes of his career.
Here’s my read on how a 43-year-old who came in as only a slight favorite turned a wrestler’s game plan inside out.
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Round 1: The Blueprint Works, Then Leaks
Radtke took the center immediately and walked Thompson to the fence. Less than a minute in, he level changed and got the takedown, and according to MMA Junkie he did it without absorbing anything meaningful on the way in. Cageside Press had Thompson defending on the mat for roughly half the round.
When Thompson got up, Radtke stayed glued to his chest. That’s the correct move against Thompson, because space is his oxygen. Radtke trains with Belal Muhammad, who owns a win over Thompson, so none of this was improvised. The hunger was real too. In a clip posted by Spinnin Backfist on Thursday, Radtke pitched his edge as total commitment to the gym: “this is all I do man. My life is this.”
The leak showed up late. Thompson finally peeled off the cage with about a minute and a half left and spent the rest of the round moving and countering, per Cageside Press. Bloody Elbow noted Radtke already looked tired once Thompson was back upright. My read is that the first takedown was expensive. MMA Mania pointed out Thompson is notoriously hard to keep down, and every second Radtke spent holding him there cost more energy than it earned in damage.
Round 2: Getting Up Faster
Radtke went right back to it, wading through Thompson’s shots to plant him on his butt against the fence early in the second. This is where the fight turned, in my view. Thompson got up much quicker the second time, and every outlet that followed was a takedown Radtke had paid for and lost.
Once Thompson had the middle of the Octagon, the striking gap opened fast. MMA Mania described a hard left hand followed by a combination that pushed Radtke back to the cage. Radtke shot, a desperate one by MMA Junkie’s description, and Thompson stuffed it. Moments later came a toe kick to the body, and Radtke was hurt. A flurry stunned him in the closing seconds and the horn bailed him out. MMA Junkie figured another 10 seconds would have done it.
That body kick is the most important strike of the night outside the finish, in my read. A tired wrestler who’s been stung in the midsection can’t explode into shots, and without the shot, Radtke had no answer for what Thompson does at range.
Round 3: Vintage Wonderboy
Thompson came out of the corner looking like the fighter who strung together seven straight wins on the way to his 2016 title shot. Uncrowned had him hammering one-twos and kicks from the bladed stance. He went back to the body repeatedly, threw a spinning kick that Radtke somehow stood through, and landed a head kick that MMA Mania said had the Garden roaring.
Radtke grabbed the clinch for relief and tried one more takedown. Thompson shut it down while the crowd booed. Honestly, I’d boo too, but that last shot was Radtke’s only exit and he took it.
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Then, at roughly the midpoint of the round, the spin. The UFC broadcast called it a wheel kick. Thompson called it a spinning hook kick to Joe Rogan. Several outlets went with spinning heel kick or spinning back kick. Whatever you label it, MMA Mania said it caught Radtke flush on the side of the head, and MMA Junkie noted his hands were up to block it.
“I don’t care if your hands are up,” Thompson said afterward, adding that “if you hit someone with a good old-fashioned spinning hook kick, you’re going down.”
My read on why the guard didn’t save Radtke: Thompson spent two and a half minutes drilling the midsection and had already shown him one spinning kick. A fighter that worn down and that worried about his ribs is reacting late to everything, and a kick that whips around the side of a high guard punishes exactly that delay. The official result was TKO (head kick, punches), and the referee stepped in at 2:54. Clean timing. Radtke was gone, the follow-up shots were brief, and nobody had to watch a defenseless man absorb extra damage.
What It Leaves Behind at 170
Thompson finishes 18-9-1 and snaps the first three-fight skid of his career, a run that went Rakhmonov submission, Joaquin Buckley knockout and a split decision loss to Gabriel Bonfim in July. His previous win came over Kevin Holland in 2022.
For Radtke, 36, this one stings, because the plan was right. He got the takedowns he wanted in both of the first two rounds. What he couldn’t do was keep Thompson down long enough to justify the energy, and against a former 57-0 kickboxer, a gas tank running low in Round 3 is a death sentence. If he’s going to wrestle elite strikers going forward, the ride time has to match the shots.
The division loses its most distinctive striker. Thompson debuted at UFC 143 in February 2012 with a head kick knockout of Dan Stittgen at 4:13 of Round 1. Fourteen years later, a 43-year-old ended it the same way against a man seven years younger, laid his gloves on the canvas, and left Joe Rogan crying in the cage. Kenny Florian posted afterward that fighters rarely get to ride off with a performance like that against a younger opponent. He undersold it, if anything.
