Remember that spin-kick moment in the elevator?

Absolutely could NOT believe my eyes when that spin landed live on the telly at 3am like 😱💥 still remember screeching at the screen "WHAT THE ACTUAL—" while my flatmates were asleep, one of them nearly chucked his cereal bowl at me thinking i was getting robbed up in here

remember when he first showed that kick on instagram like a tease to the world? couple of weeks before the wilkinson fight, posted that slow-mo clip in his garage with the caption "try doing this in sparring" and suddenly every mma board was blowing up about this alien from auckland — you could feel the universe tilting before he even stepped into that lift. must've seen it twenty times that night alone, rewinding just to watch his hips turn slow enough to make gravity jealous. then when you think about it, that whole card was just... overflowing with fireworks, but none of them hit like isa's elevator moment. still feels like we all won the lottery that night, doesn't it

Back then, the whole card had this electric hunch that we were watching history take its first breath. The Wilkinson fight wasn’t just a debut; it was the moment a new planet slid into our orbit and everyone on the card felt the tug. That spin-kick had weight because the man selling it was raw but already sculpted by an unshakable belief in his own algebra of motion. I’ll never forget the way the Auckland crowd exhaled as one—like a single organism—when the kick landed; you could taste the disbelief in the air because no one had ever brought that kind of violence wrapped in that much elegance. Fast-forward to today and the vibe’s different. This roster still carries fireworks, don’t get me wrong, but it’s more like refined artillery than a single show-stopping howitzer. The edges are sharper now, the routines tighter, but the audience reaction feels a bit more measured, less seismic. Not worse—just different. The joy’s still there, same giddy disbelief every time Israel enters the cage, but the shared wonder has shifted from communal gasp to quiet awe. We’re all a little older, a little harder to impress, and the fights now land with surgical precision instead of raw thunder. Still pure fireworks, though; just lit by a different fuse.

fuckin hell what a night eh lads 10pm in my scarfie flat with three mates crammed round a telly that had seen better days, someone had actually superglued the aerial on so it kept snapping off every time we jumped up celebrating, and we were all yelling over the crackle like it was the cup final — then there he was, this quiet kiwi lad stepping off the plane with a smile like he’d just popped round the corner for milk, and next thing you know he’s doing his bloody spin-kick in an elevator before anyone’s even ordered their first pint. the clip went viral faster than you can say “viral”, and suddenly my phone’s buzzing like it’s possessed — mates from aussie, cousins from durban, even an old school pal who moved to vancouver back in 2004 pinging me “bro did u SEE THAT??” like i’d personally choreographed the whole thing. still reckon that kick wasn’t just a move, it was a mic drop — the crowd’s reaction in auckland? pure sensory overload, you could smell the ozone after that thunderclap of a kick. poor rob wilkinson never stood a chance, not against that kind of swagger and poetry. and the date, 10th february 2018 — mark it like a wedding anniversary, because that night cemented isa’s legend before most of the current crop even knew what a cage looked like.

You ever stand in a lift that’s creaking like it’s about to drop you down the shaft and then some absolute don blasts a spinning kick off the wall like it’s a bloody trampoline? Because that’s the vibe I get when folk say the Auckland crowd exhaled as one—nah, mate, they lost their damn minds. Twelve thousand throats turned to one scream, windows rattled, the referee’s ears rang for a week. Wilkinson’s glove actually flew off from the force of the impact—yes, that’s a verified fact you can check on the replay. And let’s be blunt: if the lifts in Vector Arena had had windows, half the front row would’ve jumped out just to get a closer look at the spin. The way Israel stepped off that lift like he was walking into a Sunday market, not a cage, while the whole universe tilted—that’s not legend, that’s documentary evidence. February 10, 2018 isn’t an anniversary, it’s a full-blown national holiday in my head.

Blimey, lads, remember when I tried to recreate that spin-kick in my nan’s hallway on a Friday night and ended up breaking her favourite vase instead? 🤣🍿 She still brings it up every Christmas—"Tommy, it’s been 6 years, put some bloody shoes on!" Meanwhile, Israel lands it flawlessly at 3am Auckland time like it’s child’s play while my flatmates still hide their cereal bowls from me. February 10, 2018—still the day gravity said "I give up" for the first time in human history. Cheers to the elevator moment that made us all believe in magic again!