60 Seconds: Elijah Smith Flattens Davey Grant, Banks $100K And Tells The UFC "Talk To Me"

Elijah Smith needed exactly one minute to produce the loudest statement of his young career at UFC Vegas 124, knocking out Davey Grant in the first round on Saturday night at the Meta APEX — then used his interview to remind the UFC that he is now a free agent.

LAS VEGAS — Some fights build slowly. This one was over before it had properly started.

Elijah Smith defeated Davey Grant by knockout at 1:00 of the first round on the main card of UFC Fight Night 293 at the Meta APEX, a 60-second bantamweight finish that was as violent as it was brief. Referee Herb Dean waved the fight off with Grant down on the canvas, and the official result will read KO (right hand).

The two bantamweights met in the middle of the Octagon and started throwing immediately, and for a few seconds it was genuinely competitive — both men landed sharp punches at the same time. The difference was what happened next. Grant got the worst of the exchange and began backpedaling toward the fence. Smith gave chase and caught up with him along the cage wall, unloading a series of heavy shots, a collection of violent right hands that left the British veteran reeling and sent him down to the canvas. Smith drove home one final right hand on the ground, Dean stepped in, and the fight was done at exactly one minute.

The numbers tell the same story. In 60 seconds, Smith landed 11 of 18 significant strikes — 10 of them to the head — and scored the fight's only knockdown. Grant landed eight of his 10 significant strikes, but six of them were leg kicks; the punches that mattered all belonged to Smith. Neither man attempted a takedown. There was no time.

Context is what turns a quick knockout into a career moment, and the context here is Davey Grant. The 40-year-old from Bishop Auckland, England, has been in the UFC since he reached the final of The Ultimate Fighter 18 in 2013. He came into Saturday off a unanimous-decision win over Adrian Luna Martinetti in April, and across a long professional career he had been submitted and he had been outpointed — but nobody had ever knocked him out. In his 27th professional bout, Elijah Smith became the first man to do it, and he did it in a minute.

Grant falls to 18-9 overall and 9-8 in the UFC. Smith moves to 11-1, and 4-0 inside the Octagon.

That is now nine consecutive wins for the 24-year-old they call "Swift," a streak that has swallowed everything since his lone professional defeat in March 2023. The run is notable as much for its variety as its length: in the UFC alone, Smith has outpointed Vince Morales, knocked out Toshiomi Kazama with a slam, and submitted Su Young You with a second-round rear-naked choke in March before Saturday's one-minute demolition. Decision, slam, submission, knockout — the second-generation UFC fighter, whose father Gilbert Smith previously competed in the Octagon, keeps finding a different way to win, and each win has come against a more experienced man than the last. Grant, at 40, was 16 years his senior.

What gave the performance its edge is what surrounded it. Saturday was the final fight of Smith's existing UFC contract, and he had spent fight week openly wondering why no extension had been offered. His answer was the knockout — and then, with Michael Bisping standing next to him, the words.

"I knew I could do it. He's a crafty vet, and I had to stay sharp and believe in myself," Smith said in his post-fight interview. "Sean (Shelby), Hunter (Campbell), I'm a free agent. That's been the talks around all this whole fight week. I'll be talking to you guys shortly. Talk to me."

The UFC, for its part, talked back with money. Smith was awarded a Performance of the Night bonus worth $100,000, one of the night's top individual awards alongside Thomas Petersen's Performance of the Night and the Fight of the Night shared by headliners Johnny Walker and Waldo Cortes-Acosta. For a fighter who had just fought out his contract, it was the strongest possible negotiating position: 4-0 in the promotion, nine straight wins, a highlight-reel knockout of a man who had never been knocked out, and a six-figure bonus on top.

Nothing about Saturday night was complicated. A 24-year-old prospect met a veteran who does not get knocked out, knocked him out in 60 seconds, and then told the two most powerful matchmakers in the sport to call him. Whatever happens next for Elijah Smith, he will not be the one waiting by the phone.