“Julian Erosa just flipped the script and knocked out JeongYeong Lee!” the UFC wrote on X Saturday night, minutes after the finish at UFC Vegas 123. Several accounts that follow the sport closely framed the result the same way. Championship Rounds posted that Erosa scored the knockout “IN HIS RETIREMENT FIGHT,” and Spinnin Backfist wrote that he “GETS IT DONE IN HIS RETIREMENT FIGHT.”
The money came a few hours later. The UFC announced on X that Erosa was one of four Performance of the Night winners on the October 31 card, along with Tom Nolan, Joe Kropschot and Lucia Szabova. Boxing News reported that Erosa retires with a $100,000 knockout bonus from the Halloween event. The promotion’s wording, “flipped the script,” suggests Lee had the better of things before the finish. The sources don’t give the round or time.
A long road to a good exit
Erosa, 37, leaves at 32-13, according to Cagefile data, and was ranked No. 44 at featherweight out of Xtreme Couture. His path to the UFC was never a straight one. He was born in Seattle, grew up in Yakima, and spent his teens skateboarding, snowboarding and getting into fights before he drifted into MMA. He studied accounting at Central Washington University for a couple of years, following his mother, then left school.
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He went 10-0 as an amateur, turned pro in 2010, and became a two-division CageSport champion in the Pacific Northwest. He held the lightweight title and the featherweight title at the same time after he submitted Drew Brokenshire in the third round in February 2015, avenging an earlier loss. He then made a run on The Ultimate Fighter: Team McGregor vs. Team Faber, winning three fights before Artem Lobov knocked him out in the first round of the semifinals.
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The UFC signed him anyway. He beat Marcin Wrzosek by split decision at the TUF finale on December 11, 2015, lost to Teruto Ishihara by second-round knockout at UFC 196, and was released. He spent the following years fighting wherever he could, winning the Prime Fighting featherweight title and dropping a unanimous decision to Paddy Pimblett for the Cage Warriors featherweight belt that is still widely called controversial.
Plenty of fighters with that kind of résumé get cut twice and stay gone. Erosa kept finding his way back, and his last night in the Octagon ended with a knockout he had to come from behind to get and a $100,000 check.
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