Maxboxing Knockout of the Year - Brian Norman Jr. KO 5 Jin Sasaki

Heading into 2025, Conyers, Georgia’s Brian Norman Jr. (28-1-1, 22 KOs) had an unbeaten record, the WBO world welterweight title, and a reputation as a man who would be very hard to beat.

Well, 2025 was an interesting year for Norman. It started with an impressive stoppage of Derrick Cuevas in Las Vegas in March and finished with a frustrating decision loss of his world title to Devin Haney in November.

But these fights book-ended a devastating knockout of Japanese contender Jin Sasaki (19-2-1, 17 KOs) in June.

In 28 fights as a pro, Norman had only fought in his home state 5 times, so hitting the road to Ota-City, Japan, was no problem for him. 

After a couple of quick trips to the deck in the opening round, it was clear that Sasaki had to watch out for Norman’s power as the USA-based champion appeared very strong to the head and body. However, after the shaky start, Sasaki showed guts and some bravado through the next 4 rounds.

But, in the 5th round, Norman countered off a jab to the body with a perfectly timed left hook. It landed right on the button, and Sasaki was out cold - they could have counted to 100.

Sasaki, trying to feed off the energy of his hometown crowd, was game and gutsy. But Norman’s power and perfect timing were too much for the Japanese challenger to handle. It was a ‘welcome to the big leagues’ moment for the Tokyo contender.

While Norman would lose the title in his next bout several months later, he registered one of the best, pure knockouts you will see in this 2nd defence of the title. 

Norman is looking to get back to title contention. Sasaki returns in February 2026.

But Norman can enjoy his moment in getting the nod for as clean a KO as you will see and MaxBoxing’s “Knockout of the Year”.