Geoff Neal believes he “shut people up” by knocking out Vicente Luque, expects “everybody is going to try to wrestle me now”

Geoff Neal always knew he was going to fight Vicente Luque and he’s quite happy with how it played out.

Neal and Luque were the co-main event of UFC Vegas 59 two weekends ago and Neal scored a third-round KO. However, in the first round, Neal appeared to have Luque hurt but he didn’t want to rush anything as he knew the Brazilian was still dangerous.

“I had him hurt but he is still dangerous. There was one point where I had him rocked and I tried to throw a flurry and he threw a hook and it was so fast that the commentators didn’t even catch it,” Neal said on Just Scrap Radio on BJPENN.com. “It kind of stung me a little bit and I was like alright let’s not get slept trying to finish him. I took my time to really know he was hurt.”

With Neal not rushing anything, the fight entered the third round, and in the final round, he began landing heavy shots and had Luque hurt. The Fortis MMA product then landed vicious uppercuts and punches along the cage that knocked Luque out cold and for Neal, he believes this performance will silence a lot of doubters.

“I’m happy, it was a mental confidence boost for me to feel my body doing what the f**k it’s supposed to be doing,” Neal explained. “Then, to take out a tough guy like that, that nobody has been able to finish. I feel like I shut people up, but some people still aren’t giving me credit saying he looked off. Like, of course, he looked off, I made him look off. It is what it is, I’ll take that win, take that money and move on to the next fight.”

Although Geoff Neal got the win and looked better than ever, he believes doing so will make everyone wrestle him and be scared to strike with him.

Neal knows the top of the welterweight division is wrestling-heavy, but he knows he has an underrated ground game and is excited to prove he can keep fights standing and force other fighters to strike with him.

“Everybody is going to try to wrestle me now, that’s what it looks like,” Neal said. “Most of the dudes ahead of me, it’s a wrestling-heavy division so they will try and wrestle, I’m ready for it.”

Were you impressed with Geoff Neal’s win over Vicente Luque?