The 2025 KO Of The Year: Brian Norman Junior KO Jin Sasaki

As we start the new year, fight fans, writers, pundits, and actual and real fighters find themselves, are looking back at the previous 12 months. Awards have been, and are being, handed out, and everyone has their opinion on what the 2025 Fight of the Year was, or who the Fighter of the Year was. The Upset of the Year, the Round of the Year, and so on…..

In terms of the KO of the Year, well the chilling one-punch knockout Brian Norman Junior scored in June of 2025 gets the nod here. Big style.

Norman Jr met Jin Sasaki in Tokyo, Japan on June 20th.

Norman, unbeaten at the time and promising a showcase as he defended his WBO welterweight title, delivered in spades – this courtesy of a highlight reel KO, the kind that quite literally any fighter would be proud to have on their CV. Norman, after twice dropping Sasaki in the opening round, closed the show in quite brutal fashion in round-five, this when he knocked Sasaki out cold with a peach of a left hook to the head. It was the kind of knockout the more bloodthirsty of us hope to see, while for others, the KO proved disturbing.

Carl Moretti, speaking with The Ring just after the KO, said at the time that we would not see a more stunning KO this year.

“No one’s beating that knockout, that is the knockout of the year,” Moretti stated. “And will make every highlight reel and people will keep playing it and that’s what people want to see.”

It’s a true, if not too flattering reflection in human nature. We DO love to see a violent, head-slamming, spinning knockout. It’s simply an innate, yes, bloodthirsty flaw in the human condition. Isn’t it?

In any case, Moretti, who really did speak some truth back in the summer, has a whole lot of folks agreeing with him here, on January 1 of the new year.

But where does Norman’s icing of Sasaki rank among the all-time great knockouts? Does it in fact deserve a spot on such a lofty list? This wasn’t Sugar Ray Robinson wiping out the granite-chinned Gene Fulmer, nor was it Rocky Marciano taking down the great Jersey Joe Walcott. Still, for some, Moretti included, Norman’s KO immediately ranked as one that was very, very special.

Again, we fight fans, as much as we may appreciate and admire the Sweet Science of boxing, well, we sure do come alive most when we see a nasty, savage knockout!