The last thing Solomon Rogers remembered, he was mixing it up with Samuel Ilnicki in the second round of his amateur MMA debut at a Golden Ticket Fight Promotions event in Wolverhampton, England.

Things were going well. They’d traded some good shots in the first round. Rogers was starting to see the opening to land his overhand right in the second.

But as he wound up to throw it, Ilnicki came in with a kick. Rogers couldn’t tell at first where it would come from, so he made the mistake of dipping his head down to the left just as Ilnicki’s right shin came rising toward his face.

“The last thing I saw was his leg coming up at me,” Rogers told MMAjunkie. “I remember thinking, ‘Well, you’ve (expletived) up big time, haven’t you?’”

Rogers doesn’t remember what happened next, but by now he’s seen it. So have hundreds of thousands of other people. The image of his whole body stiffening in the aftermath of the kick, as if he’d been frozen in place by the force of the blow before pitching slowly forward onto his head, that’s the stuff viral video sensations are made of.

That might explain why the YouTube video currently has more than 1 million views, and why the MMAjunkie story on the Nov. 18 knockout garnered more than 100,000 hits in the days after the fight.

One of those clicks came from Rogers, who first learned that he’d become a viral sensation when he saw himself on this website the Monday after his fight.

“It was weird, because I’m constantly on MMAjunkie, just seeing what’s happening in MMA,” Rogers said. “Then to look on there one day and see myself getting knocked out, it’s a strange feeling.”

It didn’t stop there, either. Suddenly, Rogers had become a form of Internet famous. He got messages from people all over the world. He saw tweets and social media shares from strangers and celebrities, including rapper B-Real of Cypress Hill, a favorite of his growing up.

People on YouTube were worried about his teeth (he still has them all). Fight fans in Brazil sent him emails to tell him what a warrior he is (he didn’t exactly feel like one just then).

This is what it’s like on the wrong end of a viral video knockout. Suddenly everybody’s talking about you, but in a way that makes you wish they weren’t. Then again, Rogers admitted, in a way it was helpful.

“On Monday after the fight, I was just upset about it, about how the fight went,” Rogers said. “But since then, seeing how many shares it’s gotten and how many views it has, I just have to laugh about it. It’s strange. Off an amateur debut, this huge thing happened, and all these people saw it.”

It didn’t work quite the same for Ilnicki, the man on the kicking end of the highlight. In the immediate aftermath of the blow, all attention was focused on Rogers. Even Ilnicki stopped short of celebrating the knockout win out of concern for Rogers’ health.

“The way he fell on his head like that, you know, it was an amateur fight,” Ilnicki said. “We don’t get paid for that, and I did something scary there. So yes, I felt worried.”

He felt even more worried because, based on their brief interactions before the fight, Ilnicki really liked Rogers. He seemed like a nice guy. And after being stung by Rogers’ leg kicks in the first round, Ilnicki had to respect him as a fighter, too. He wanted to win, but he didn’t want to hurt the guy. Ending the fight that way left him with mixed feelings.

“It was good because, for a knockout, I couldn’t do it any better,” Ilnicki said. “But I didn’t want to see him hurt. Before the fight, he came with a smile to me, and I did the same with him. It was a tough fight, but no bad blood.”

But while Rogers was flooded with concern and support following his loss, Ilnicki didn’t exactly get overwhelmed with praise for his win. Walking around the arena after the fight, sure, people congratulated him on the knockout.

Beyond that? It was as if people didn’t think so much about the man who landed the kick, but only about the man who had to eat it.

“I haven’t really heard much from anyone,” Ilnicki said. “Some people started to follow me on Instagram or Twitter, but no organizations have asked me to fight after that.”

Rogers, meanwhile, is back at his job as a marketing executive for an online casino. His coworkers have all seen the video, of course, which means he had to endure some jokes at first. Still, they can’t help but be impressed that he was willing to get in the cage and give it his best shot after slightly less than a year of MMA training.

“I want to fight again,” Rogers said. “I just want to take some time first and get a little better.”

And once that’s accomplished? He’d like a rematch with Ilnicki. Maybe then he’ll get to find out what it’s like on the other end of a highlight-reel finish. Even if it turns out to be a little lonelier, at least it’ll hurt less.

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