Kalinn Williams Felt Overlooked by UFC Fight Night 241 Foe Carlston Harris

Kalinn Williams taught Carlston Harris a valuable lesson on Saturday night: Don’t look too far ahead when a dangerous opponent is right in front of you.

“Khaos the Ox Fighter” secured the fourth knockout victory of his promotional tenure in the UFC Fight Night 241 co-main event, putting Harris away with a massive right hand just 90 seconds into Round 1. After the bout, Williams admitted to finding motivation from Harris’ pre-fight talk of future opponents.

“He was looking past me. Don’t look past me,” Williams said in a backstage interview with the UFC. “You over here talking about who you want to fight after me. You’ve got to beat me. You’ve got to go through me first to even get to them. That’s just what it was.

“I don’t really pay attention to the interviews, but my team told me. It was like, ‘He said he wants to fight this person [and] this person.’ Come on, man. I’m a contender myself, so you’ve got to get through me. I just had to do what I had to do.”

Harris entered the matchup with victories in four of his first five Octagon appearances, but Williams knew he would have an advanage if he forced his adversary to stand and trade with him.

“My game plan was to do what I did. Keep it standing. I knew that I had an edge over him when it came to the standing,” Williams said. “I was ready for pretty much wherever the fight was gonna go. I saw he was a heavy grappler, so I thought he was gonna present more of that. I was really working on my jiu-jitsu a little bit more, my wrestling a little bit more for this fight. But overall I was working on everything.

“When he came out there and [decided to stand] with me a little bit more and didn’t shoot with me, I was like, ‘Let’s go. This is it.’ That’s all that I needed.”

The 34-year-old Williams is now 4-1 in his last five UFC fights, and he hopes to keep climbing the welterweight ladder as the year progresses.

“Whoever they throw in front of me. I want all the smoke,” he said. “I want to continue to move forward and crack the rankings before the year [is] over with.”