{"id":840649,"date":"2026-08-01T15:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T15:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/840649\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T15:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T15:54:08","slug":"ufc-belgrade-highlights-jovan-leka-debuts-with-nasty-liver-kick-ko","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/840649\/","title":{"rendered":"UFC Belgrade Highlights! Jovan Leka Debuts With Nasty Liver Kick KO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Jovan Leka delivered the goods in his Octagon debut earlier today (Sat., Aug. 1, 2026) at UFC Belgrade LIVE on Paramount+ from inside Belgrade Arena in Belgrade, Serbia, as the hometown favorite made easy work out of<br \/>Alexander Poppeck with a gnarly first-round TKO (body kick and punches).<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Leka, who is just 24 years old, came into Saturday\u2019s \u201cPrelims\u201d matchup as a sizeable betting favorite. That\u2019s because Leka is a heavyweight and Poppeck is a light heavyweight. Poppeck was filling in on short notice and gave up nearly 50 pounds to Leka. It was up to Leka to prove weight classes matter as he aimed to become the first Serbian fighter to ever win in Belgrade.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The heavyweight prospect certainly took his time in the early going, but once Leka unleashed his offense it was over in a matter of seconds. With just over two minutes off the clock Leka unloaded a perfectly-placed kick to the liver that instantly crumbled Poppeck and sent him headed to the canvas. Leka rushed in for ground-and-pound, but the damage was already done. It was one of the best liver kick finishes fight fans have seen in quite some time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Check out the video highlights below:<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">For complete UFC Belgrade results, coverage, and highlights click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/e\/460490\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jovan Leka delivered the goods in his Octagon debut earlier today (Sat., Aug. 1, 2026) at UFC Belgrade&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":840650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,33601,638,82,139445,702,7788,9468],"class_list":["post-840649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-on-paramount","tag-ufc-news","tag-ufc-results","tag-ufc-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=840649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/840650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=840649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=840649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=840649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}