At age 26, with only five UFC main card appearances to his name, Yair Rodriquez has experienced more highs and lows than many fighters have over the span of an entire career. Before scoring one of the most memorable knockouts in UFC history this past Saturday against "Korean Zombie" Chan Sung Jung in Denver, CO, the flashy Featherweight from Mexico fought a long, difficult, dangerous path; and that’s just what happened outside the cage.

Rodriguez launched his UFC career by winning the promotion’s Latin American iteration of The Ultimate Fighter series, and from there made steady, incremental progress at climbing the promotional ladder and becoming a household name among MMA fans. Rodriguez followed his TUF triumph with a split decision win, and then a unanimous decision win, before breaking out as a potential star with a jaw-dropping jumping switch kick KO over Team Alpha Male’s Andre Fili at UFC 197.

From there, Dana White and company treated Rodriguez as a star in the making. A Mexican national with a knack for flashy jumping, spinning, and leaping techniques, Rodriguez seemed a promoter’s dream. Boxing is extremely popular in Mexico, but MMA hasn’t achieved a fraction of boxing’s mainstream success; perhaps Rodriguez could finally be the Mexican star to help MMA catch on in his home country. Rodriguez won a split decision in his first main event bout against Alex Caceres. While his performance was not dominant, it was certainly a spectacle that provided a showcase of Yair’s signature Kung Fu movie-esque jumping and spinning head kicks.

Yair was rewarded with another main event feature bout, this time in the coveted Fight Night slot following the NFL Divisional Playoff games. UFC runs this card annually on Sunday to capitalize on the massive NFL Playoffs viewership numbers, infusing the Fox NFL broadcasts with ads from the Fox Sports 1 UFC event scheduled to begin immediately after the games. This slot has previously been used to feature Conor McGregor when he was a rising star in the Featherweight division. For Rodriguez’s turn, he was booked against UFC legend and former two-division champion BJ Penn. Rodriguez again held up his end of the bargain and dominated BJ with an onslaught of kicks and knees before finishing him with punches just seconds into the second round.

That’s when everything nearly fell apart for Rodriguez. The UFC booked Rodriguez in the biggest test of his career at UFC 211, matching him up with former UFC champion Frankie Edgar. Unlike BJ Penn, Edgar’s days as an all-time great fighter are far from over, and the New Jersey native dominated Rodriguez with boxing and wrestling en route to a second round TKO stoppage. The referee mercifully called the one-sided fight due to Rodriguez’s eye swelling shut in a borderline-grotesque manner; at the time Rodriguez’s hype train was effectively derailed.

Meanwhile, another rising star had emerged in the Featherweight division – Frankie Edgar’s teammate Zabit Magomedshapirov strung together a pair of impressive submission finishes and set his eyes on a matchup with Rodriguez. As Zabit saw it, his teammate Edgar had given Rodriguez an opportunity by agreeing to fight the lower-ranked Rodriguez; now Rodriguez should return the favor by giving the same opportunity to a lower-ranked but ascending member of Edgar’s team.

While Zabit was persistent and enthusiastic in calling for Rodriguez in interviews and on social media, Rodriguez was apparently less enthused. Nearly a year passed after the Edgar loss with no new fight announced for Rodriguez. Apparently he felt that a fight against an unranked opponent was too big a step backwards coming off the Edgar fight, and tried to hold out for an opponent with a more established name. Instead, the UFC announced that on May 10, 2018, the young man once slotted as the next big Hispanic MMA star had been released from the company.

Three long weeks later, cooler heads prevailed, and UFC announced that Rodriguez was back in the company and set to fight none other than Zabit. However, in an ironic and inconclusive finale to the Zabit/Rodirguez saga, Rodriguez pulled out of the bout due to injury. He would get his chance to finally return to the octagon a few months later when Frankie Edgar pulled out of his main event bout against the returning Korean Zombie at the UFC’s 25th Anniversary event. Finally, Yair found the matchup he wanted in a main event slot against a higher ranked fighter with name recognition.

For five rounds, the two Featherweights put on a high-level standup war. Rodriguez threw some of his signature techniques, but more often than not Zombie was able to do what he does best and eat Rodriguez’s shots to land bigger shots. Rodriguez did maintain a high pace, and landed a number of kicks and knees to the body and legs. Heading into the fifth and final round, Zombie clearly had done enough with his relentless boxing combinations to have the edge in an exciting, fast-paced contest. As the round opened, both men met in the middle of the cage and embraced in a show of respect and sportsmanship.

With 2 minutes left in the fight, Rodriguez stepped back and threw his hands in the air to gesture to the crowd to make some noise. Zombie nodded in agreement and reached out to slap hands with his opponent. With blood dripping down his face, Rodriguez landed a spinning backfist and then whiffed on a standing hammerfist. With 46 seconds left, Zombie, his face cut up and bleeding only slightly less than Rodriguez’s, continued to land boxing combinations.

Commentator Paul Felder observed that Rodriguez looked to be setting up for something big, perhaps a jump kick. While Felder wasn’t exactly right, his prediction was almost inadvertently prescient. In the very final moments of the fight, Rodriguez again paused to gesture for the crowd to get loud. The referee called for action, and Rodriguez tried to attack with kicks before being countered again with Zombie’s boxing and retreating backwards. As Zombie marched forward throwing hands, Rodriguez swiftly slipped the punches and ducked his head underneath Zombie’s.

And then, in the literal final second of the fight, Rodriguez threw a straight no-look upwards elbow that landed cleanly on the Korean Zombie’s jaw and instantly knocked him out cold. Just like that, after fighting his heart out in what looked to be a tough but decisive decision loss, Yair Rodriguez pulled a victory out of thin air. The incredible buzzer-beater timing of the KO was matched only by the implausible creativity and coordination of the once-in-a-lifetime finishing elbow.

Rodriguez was literally one second away from being the guy who just settled a year-long contract dispute with UFC management and then lost a clear decision to mark his second consecutive loss; instead, that last-second elbow changed the entire context of Yair Rodriguez’s UFC career. Now Rodriguez is 7-1 in the UFC, tied for the second-most wins in his division since his UFC debut in 2014. With that kind of success in the octagon, a popcorn-friendly action-pushing style, and (hopefully) the country of Mexico behind him, it looks like Rodriguez’s long, contentious layoff will be more of a bump in the road than a career derailment. Fight fans can again look forward to seeing how Yair Rodriguez will surprise them.