Alistair Overeem was winning his UFC heavyweight bout on Saturday night, right up until things took a sudden and gruesome turn.

Overeem was battling Jairzinho Rozenstruik and seemed to have control of the bout, when all of a sudden, Rozenstruik uncorked a vicious right hand that literally exploded Overeem’s face.

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Amazingly, Overeem managed to get up after the ferocious blow, but the fight was called due to the injury and the fact that the Dutch fighter was still clearly woozy from the hit.

Nonetheless, the gruesome injury didn’t dampen Overeem’s spirits as he proved on Twitter a few hours later.

The heavyweight bout did end up making history, not for being the only time in history that a fighter’s lip came off. But, Rozenstruik’s punch became the latest ever in a heavyweight fight, TMZ Sports reports.

Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter @themightygwinn