Cain Velasquez certainly has the style to handle Francis Ngannou in the first round. Of course that’s not saying he’s likely to do it. At heavyweight, anybody can get slept in the opening minutes. When you have super athletic men who are twice the size of the average person, there’s a serious amount of force that can be generated with each strike.
Despite not being known as a one-shot knockout artist, Velasquez has nine first round finishes on his record. While I won’t be running to a bookkeeper looking to see what the prop is on a Cain first-round destruction, his style opens up the possibility beyond the aforementioned heavyweight X-factor.