Chapter 531: Final Payment

Chapter 531: The Final Payment

Without even needing a countdown, the referee, who stood frozen for a good two seconds, directly declared a knockout.

Looking at the monster lying motionless on the ground, it felt utterly inconceivable no matter how one looked at it; was this truly the number one man in the UFC, the Monster?

Yet, recalling the scene from just moments ago, it somehow seemed entirely reasonable and fair; the only thing that made no sense was how this Monster, or rather the UFC top brass, had lost their minds in the first place to compete with someone like Meng Fan for the title of the world's strongest, what was there to fight over, wouldn't it have been better to just hand it over to him, if you hadn't fought you could at least say you hadn't lost, but now that you fought how on earth are you going to fix this.

Losing is not disgraceful, but losing like this is truly humiliating!

A KO, or even a three-second KO, was a situation that had occurred quite a few times in the UFC, only this match could no longer be described by how many seconds the KO took, that scene just now was not a normal clash, it was simply... sigh!

To tell the truth, it really looked as though it carried an element of playfulness, and a very large element at that.

But looking at it the other way around, the Monster's performance today, or rather the Monster's strength when facing Meng Fan, genuinely had not reached a level that deserved Meng Fan's respect.

The crucial and biggest problem was that you, the Monster, and the UFC insisted on challenging Meng Fan, and forced Meng Fan into the match using methods that were not particularly honorable.

It would have been fine if you won.

But losing, and losing in such a manner, was truly ugly to the extreme.

The referee standing in the ring knew very well in his heart that no matter how the UFC conducted public relations and operations afterward, the authority and prestige of the UFC would decline significantly within the realm of combat sports.

Furthermore, it wasn't as if the UFC had no competitors, none of whom were gentle souls, and it was even less likely that they would stand in solidarity with the UFC against Meng Fan just because they were all mixed martial arts; kicking them while they were down was basically a foregone conclusion.

Such thoughts also crossed the minds of the UFC executives.

They naturally knew the Monster did not have a high chance of winning, but to them, the UFC's chance of winning was absolutely immense; it could completely be said that they had already won the moment Meng Fan agreed to participate, what they wanted was the influence of the event, and their object of comparison could no longer be other mixed martial arts events, but rather they aimed their sights at events like top-tier boxing matches, even wanting to obtain the qualification to be compared horizontally with other types of top-tier sporting events.

Were it not for this, how could they be willing to pay such an astronomical appearance fee of 100 million US dollars, and that was without any possibility of secretly or covertly conducting operations with a gambling nature like boxing.

What they did not expect was that the Monster would actually lose so terribly.

Now it was just fine, the attention was absolutely sufficient, but their faces were completely lost.

A loss like the Monster's would severely damage the reputation of the UFC as a top-tier mixed martial arts event; the number one man coming out of this event, which claimed to be the most comprehensive and top-tier combat sport, was beaten like this by an amateur athlete from the Olympics, so the next time the UFC dared to shout slogans like this being the world's top-tier battlefield, they would have to think twice.

"Let's go!"

After a moment of silence, several executives stood up collectively and left the VIP room.

Losing like this meant that for them, the tribulation had officially begun, and what followed would be the true test for them; the resources originally prepared to continue using this match for massive promotion and marketing would now all be used to mitigate the impact brought by this match, which was truly laughable and ironic when they thought about it.

After the referee announced the result of the match, most of the live audience was very thrilled, reveling in the incredible process and the sudden outcome of this match.

There was also a small portion that fell into silence, obviously because this was not the result they wanted to see; they did not think as much as the executives and industry insiders, they purely felt that the Monster should not lose, the Monster who represented the strongest in global mixed martial arts events should not lose, the Monster who represented Western combat sports or even physique could not lose, and absolutely could not lose so terribly, and most of all, could not lose to a Huaxia person!

They were not only silent, but also angry!

As for the media, it was even more complex; first of all, their current emotional experience had little relation to the content they were about to write, and what was ultimately put to pen still conformed to the interests of themselves or even larger entities. This was also not something that appeared only after the match determined a winner, it had already existed as early as when this match was announced.

As soon as the match ended, the major media outlets began to exert their power, scrambling for the battlefield of public opinion. Even though the result was already like this, and even though this match was broadcast live, the way the media wrote about it still showed deviations or even completely opposite directions, which will not be dwelt upon too much here.

To mention a rather interesting point slightly, that was the reports on this match by Japan and South Korea also showed two completely different directions, which to a certain extent was still related to their attitudes after being abused by Meng Fan; one side was "I'm not listening, I'm not listening, I am the strongest in the universe," while the other side was "You are awesome, you are awesome, before I learn how to beat you to death, you are daddy," so one side was furiously blasting Meng Fan for not having a shred of sportsmanship (???) while the other side was furiously blowing rainbow farts.

There was supposed to be a post-match press conference after the match ended, but the UFC side canceled it directly; however, the media was obviously unwilling to let it go just like that, they couldn't catch the Monster who had already been sent to the hospital, but "catching" Meng Fan was still relatively simple, so microphones were shoved directly at the arena, creating the visual sense of a press conference.

"What I want to say the most?"

Seeing that the scene was noisy and not particularly wanting to give an interview, Meng Fan only answered this question: "I just want to ask when the UFC side can clear the final payment of my appearance fee, I am about to return to Huaxia."

It was also fortunate that the UFC executives had already left, otherwise who knows how many would have vomited blood and suffered heart attacks.

...

Not to mention the situation on the foreign internet, the Huaxia internet was a scene of jubilation; although every single one of them said that God Iron must have been "invincible in the world" long ago and disdained to fight some Monster at all, they were actually truly happy, proud, and full of pride. In their eyes, the Monster was equivalent to the most capable fighter in the West, and the significance of Meng Fan winning so easily was very grand to them, and some highly elevated remarks emerged endlessly.

Saying nothing else, one could see a glimpse of it from the airport arrival scene when Meng Fan returned this time; that mountain of people and sea of crowds was something that even the newly built Daxing Airport could hardly withstand, but fortunately, the order at the scene was exceptionally good, seemingly either accustomed to it or influenced by Meng Fan, after all, he was a man who could make everyone stand obediently without moving with just a single glance.

The feet of the crowd welcoming him basically did not move, but their mouths did not stop; besides words like "welcome home," there were even more various strange... words of blessing and teasing, and no lack of some unique concern, such as—

"God Iron, was the final payment over there paid?"

Meng Fan had finally caught up with his teammates to return to the country together; hearing such a sharp question, he laughed out loud and nodded. Before he came back, he had indeed received the final payment, only the money that arrived in his hands was definitely not 100 million US dollars, after all, there was still a large amount of tax to be deducted.

But no matter how much arrived in his hands, he still decided to take out 300 million Huaxia Yuan to support the construction related to Huaxia combat sports, including venues, events, coaching teams, and so on. Of course, it was impossible to accomplish this matter by relying on his money alone; for instance, for the venues, he was prepared to draw in some capital, and for things related to events, he was prepared to "appoint people based on cronyism" and pull Wu Ji in to cooperate, and as for the coaching teams, that required cooperation from all sides even more, so in comparison, the 300 million he took out was truly not the main point.

Building up Huaxia combat sports was an extremely difficult matter, a point Meng Fan knew very well, but there always had to be someone to come out and take the lead, at least to clean up the current chaotic scene, so that related training and events could operate normally, healthily, and orderly.

Meng Fan did this not based on a whim of his own head, but after discussing it with professional individuals from various sides, and he had also received promises and support from various aspects; the ultimate goal was not purely to select some seed players and good athletic sprouts from these training sessions and events to make Huaxia's combat sports take a step further, but mainly to allow more Huaxia youths to understand, like, and participate in sports related to combat, and possess a stronger physique and will.

This point, in Meng Fan's view, was more important than how many champions were produced; of course, after the mass foundation and soil for the related sports became fertile, it was also a natural thing for good sprouts to grow from it, which did not conflict.

After returning to the country, the Judo Association arranged a press conference, mainly related to participating in the World Judo North American station competition, praising the excellent performance and good results achieved by the judo team in the event this time; Meng Fan also mentioned at the press conference in passing that he would take out 300 million to support Huaxia combat sports, and simultaneously mentioned multiple companies and units that would participate in it.

The scale could be said to be exceptionally grand.

(End of this chapter)