Kazushi Sakuraba is an MMA legend who took on all comers during his many epic fights in PRIDE FC back in the day but many people do not know that he is also a longtime pro wrestler as well.

While pro wrestling is completely different than MMA as it is clearly fake and pre-choreographed, things get a little too real in the following video from several years ago.

At 11:49 in the video we see Sakuraba land a brutal knee strike on his charging opponent that connects a little too hard, knocking him out cold.

You can see from Sakuraba’s reaction that a mistake was clearly made. Also, he does not look to follow up in any way and simply lets the referee check on his condition.

In the slow motion replay, you can see that the knee landed more on the thigh region but the fact that his opponent was running into it probably made it a lot worse. Plus it landed right on his chin too.

The guy he knocked out here is actually a former MMA fighter as well but nowhere near the level that Sakuraba was on in his prime. His opponent, named Shinsuke Nakamura, has an MMA record of 3-1 which includes an impressive win over kickboxing champion Alexey Ignashov who also had some brutal knees of his own.

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ABOUT KAZUSHI SAKURABA:
Kazushi Sakuraba (桜庭 和志? Sakuraba Kazushi, born July 14, 1969) is a Japanese mixed martial artist and professional wrestler, currently signed to Rizin Fighting Federation. He has competed in traditional puroresu for New Japan Pro Wrestling and shoot-style competition for UWFi and Kingdom Pro Wrestling. He has fought in MMA competition in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Pride Fighting Championships, Hero’s and Dream. He is known as the “Gracie Hunter” or the “Gracie Killer” due to his wins over four members of the famed Gracie family: Royler Gracie, Renzo Gracie, Ryan Gracie, and Royce Gracie. In particular, Sakuraba is famous for his initial fight with Royce, which lasted ninety minutes.[Source: Wiki]