Adding to the drama, the 31-year-old said he had Covid-19 at the end of October and was in quarantine for two weeks, but ran up a mountain in Nevada to sort himself out.

“The day after I got out of quarantine, that’s when the UFC called, so it was a bit of a toss up, but I said if I get this opportunity, I have to take it,” Palatnikov said in his post-fight interview with media backstage.

“For three days I had a wicked headache, I was really tired, then I lost my taste and smell, which was really weird. But Lorenzo Pavlica at Prime Time Performance, he took me up the Potosi Mountain – 6,000 feet – and had me running in the snow. I cleared those lungs out.”

The referee stepped in at 2:47 of the third round, when Palatnikov stopped a desperate takedown attempt from an exhausted Cosce, who had no answer for the shots being rained down on him.

The two had traded bombs for two and a half rounds in an absolute war, with Palatnikov also overcoming multiple groin shots. He had been ahead 20-18 on two of the judges’ scorecards heading into the third round.

“I truly believe I was as close as I could be to 100 per cent, but with Covid, the first week back it was rough,” he said. “I was going through some kind of battles in my mind, there were a couple of seconds I thought, ‘Maybe I need to talk to Danny [Rubenstein, his manager], I don’t know if I can do this’.

“As soon as I was up putting in 10k in the mountains, just running uphill in the snow, I don’t know if that’s the remedy but I was able to hack out all that garbage in my lungs. I came back on Monday and felt how I was supposed to feel.

“Sometimes if you don’t take it, you don’t get it, so I just put all my stuff together, got my mind right, and got the result. I felt I could have put him away earlier, but Louis is a tough guy, hits hard. He hit me in back of the head a couple times but I finished the fight.”

Palatnikov, born and raised in Hong Kong to a Russian father and Scottish mother, left the city a year ago to chase his dream of becoming its first representative in the UFC, joining up with Syndicate MMA and head coach John Wood in Las Vegas.

Meet Sasha Palatnikov, Hong Kong’s first UFC fighter

He signed a multi-fight contract this month soon after joining the Ruby Sports and Entertainment management group.

Though he was not permitted to have the flag of Hong Kong next to his name during the broadcast, instead using China, Palatnikov did have the white Bauhinia on his red mouthguard.

“I’ve been here, literally to the day, one year since I moved from Hong Kong,” he said. “The goal was to take something on short notice in the UFC. John Wood, he’s been my right hand man and mentoring me through the process. One of my best friends, Matt Pelino, flew out from Singapore, he’s now my roommate. So we’ve just been grinding. All my teammates, Sean Strickland, Chris Curtis, pushing me, getting me better every day. I couldn’t have done it without them.”

A former middleweight champion with Korean promotion Angel’s Fighting Championship, who last fought at UAE Warriors 13 with a first-round TKO win, Palatnikov had come in as a huge $5 underdog with Las Vegas bookies against the 25-year-old US regional star Cosce.

And he seemed to take pleasure in ruining a few fans’ parlays.

“It’s really funny, my father was sending me nonstop predictions from these guys on YouTube telling me I was garbage, how Louis was just gonna put me out in the first round,” Palatnikov said.

“That really dug deep to me and it hurt because I’m like, ‘Man, you guys know nothing about me’. I’ve been in this game since I was five. I was one of the best karate fighters in southeast Asia growing up. I’ve been fighting forever, and for them to put that on me, it kind of put a chip on my shoulder.

“No disrespect to Louis, but he’s been fighting in his own backyard in California against guys I would never fight – I would never fight someone with such a bad record.

“I’ve fought five-round fights, I’ve fought against world Sambo champions. I’ve been training with some of the best fighters in the world – the current welterweight champion Kamaru Usman was a training partner of mine in 2016. So I’ve been here and I knew what I was capable of.

“To hear all these people who have never fought in their life tell me I’m garbage and to see my odds line … I think I was +450 or something crazy like that. The people that were close to me were like, ‘We’re putting all our money on you, dude’, so I had to go out there and get the result.

“I’m an international kid. I had people supporting me from Russia, Scotland, Hong Kong, the UK, Europe. A lot of people wishing me good luck. I can’t go in there and just fold. I had to come out with that W.”

After the fight, Palatnikov shouted to ringside analyst Joe Rogan, who was commentating on the ESPN broadcast.

“I told him he’s my hero,” Palatnikov said. “I’ve been watching Joe since Fear Factor, since I was a teenager. Just to see him commentating on one of my fights and then being interviewed by him was surreal. Let alone ‘DC’ [Daniel Cormier], one of my favourite fighters, and Jon Anik.

“And just this whole environment, seeing all you guys in front of me, is a blessing, because I’m usually the one on the computer watching you guys interview the fighters. To come out here … I’m a Hong Kong kid, born and raised, the first ever in the UFC.

“To have this opportunity to highlight Hong Kong fighters, because there are up and coming guys, I want to give motivation to them to keep working and that opportunity will come if you keep working. I’ve been working on this a very long time – there are ups and downs, you’ve got to follow your dream and it’s all gonna come together eventually.”