Robert Mancini reports:

I learned three important things in Las Vegas this week:
1) The best chicken fingers in the world are at the Studio Cafe in the MGM Grand.
2) The Hard Rock Hotel & Casino may have the best hotel gym in town (you’ll need it after the chicken fingers).
3) Brian Stann is the baddest dude I have ever met.

I first met Brian at New York’s Church Street Gym, a cavernous, sweat-drenched boxing gym hidden well under the streets of Manhattan’s financial district. Listening to his fists whiz through the air and the pads crack with each punch and kick, you immediately knew how the guy won his first World Extreme Cagefighting bout with a first-round knockout. But I was there as much for his work outside the cage, where the Marine earned a Silver Star for his heroism in Iraq. The then-25-year-old saved his unit during an ambush, won the second-highest honor the military has to offer, and was even thanked by the president himself. And, oh yeah, he took up fighting during his downtime and went pro … all while still serving as a Marine Corps officer.

But what seemed like an amazing story (good enough for us to do a profile on him last year, at least) turned out to just be the beginning. Brian ran his record to 5-0, finishing off all of his opponents in the first round. And last night in Las Vegas, in front of a Hard Rock Hotel & Casino crowd packed with friends, family and fellow Marines, Brian knocked out champion Doug Marshall in just 95 seconds to win the WEC light-heavyweight title.

Read what Stann had to say about his Marine brothers and watch his “You Need To Know Me” video after the jump.

“All my Marines came with me in this ring. You’re all here,” he told the crowd in an emotional post-fight interview. “This belt represents all of my Marines that were with me, that couldn’t be here, that died in combat with me.”

It’s not just lip service. Brian’s fellow Marines are often by his side when he fights, and he returns the favor, fighting for them through organizations like Hire Heroes. And yes, he’s still an active Marine Corp officer (he’ll likely tell you his recent promotion to captain means more than the belt he just won).

Nice guys rarely come out on top — especially in Vegas — so here’s to beating the odds, and here’s to the new champ.