nt"

DALLAS – After Geoff Neal’s win over Frank Camacho on Saturday, longtime UFC analyst Joe Rogan said he may be the next big star in the welterweight division.

And Neal concurs.

Neal (10-2 MMA, 2-0 UFC) knocked out Camacho (21-7 MMA, 1-3 UFC) with a perfectly placed head kick in the second round at UFC 228 at American Airlines Center in Dallas. The main card aired on pay-per-view following prelims, including Neal-Camacho, on FX and UFC Fight Pass.

The head kick was something Neal said he knew he could pull off in the fight.

“As soon as I got the call about the fight with Frank Camacho, I looked at the film,” Neal said afterward. “And I saw him dipping to that side every time Drew Dober threw his left hand at him. I was like, ‘Coach, I think I can land this kick – I think this is the thing that’s going to knock him out.’

“So we worked on it the whole camp, and just (Saturday) we came up withi the code number for it – it was ‘Zero Zero.’ I started hearing my coach just yell, ‘Zero! Zero! Zero! Zero!’ Threw the kick, landed, knocked him out, and here we are.”

But Neal said his hope was to take Camacho out in the first round out of fear that if the fight dragged out for 15 minutes, Camacho’s ability to never go away might come back to haunt Neal. If he got tired and punched himself out, he could find himself in trouble late.

Thankfully for Neal, he didn’t have to wade any deeper than the second round to get Camacho out of there.

“I was getting frustrated,” Neal said. “My hand hurts bad. He was taking some shots. I was laying into him and he wasn’t fading at all. I believed I was going to get (the finish) in the first round. When it didn’t finish in the first round, I was ready for the typical Frank Camacho – the three-round, bloody fight. But I got to knock him out in the second round and didn’t have to stay in there 15 minutes.”

Rogan said on the broadcast Neal might be on the verge of stardom, and intimated the same to Neal in the cage. And that sounds just about right to Neal.

“I feel the same way,” he said. “That’s my goal. That’s my plan. It’s not just winning a couple fights in the UFC – it’s being a face of the UFC, a name. When you think of the UFC, you think of me – that’s what I want to do. It’s going to happen.”

For more from Neal, check out the video above.

And for complete coverage of UFC 228, check out the UFC Events section of the site.