EliteXC on CBS
I just finished watching the EliteXC fights that were on CBS tonight. The fighting was high quality, and I have a great deal of respect for anyone that gets in the cage. I also have even more admiration for those that do well, and everyone did well tonight.
However, I have some major complaints about the support staff that surrounded the fighting.
The fight between Gina Carano and Kaitlin Young went to the end of the second round, and then was stopped by the doctor because of Young’s eye. I disagree with this stoppage. The cheekbone around under Young’s left eye was swollen, but it was not impairing Young’s vision at all. Young’s eyes were clear, and vision was fine. I think the doctor pussed out and stopped the fight “in case” vision became impaired. You know what? That’s the ref’s job. He is there to pause the fight if he thinks that an injury has become dangerous enough to warrant a doctor’s inspection. At that time, the doctor can review things and stop the fight if necessary. If fights were stopped because something might go wrong, then the fights should never happen at all. I don’t know what kind of doctors New Jersey has or what kind the NJ Athletic Commission has, but I’m starting to think that the doctors were proctologists hired to make sure the fighters’ visual abilities aren’t impaired.
Also, the fight between Robbie Lawler and Scott Smith was a championship match that was stopped before the end of the 3rd round because Smith got poked in the eye. The stoppage was another doctor stoppage. Again, I think it was a proctologist was in charge of checking for eye damage. Because the 3rd round didn’t finish, it was declared a No Contest fight. They got a camera right up in Smith’s face immediate after the doctor stoppage, and his pupils were equally dilated, and his eyes were very clear. If there was a problem, it was a scratch to the eye. In this case, if the fighter says he can see clearly, then let the fight continue. I know that the fighter will almost always say that they can continue, but without fancy optometric equipment (which I doubt is handy in a fighting cage), a doctor cannot determine if a scratch impairs vision or not. In this case, they must trust the fighter and let the fight continue.
The referee of the final fight (some hard to pronounce Italian name — Margliannio or something like that) stopped the fight as a TKO while Thompson was still standing and Kimbo Slice was still swinging. If Slice landed two more shots, Thompson was going to go down. However, Thompson had been in trouble a few other times during the fight, and had taken the fight to the ground. Slice showed little-to-no ground skills, and the referee should have allowed Thompson the chance to take the fight to the ground… or be knocked the ground. My guess is that Slice was going to knock Thompson to the ground, but the referee should have waited until that happened before stopping the fighting. I think the referee was just too chicken-shit to jump in between Slice and Thompson if it went to the ground-and-pound by Slice.
The doctors and the referee should not be allowed near another MMA fight until they are better trained to handle the complexities and “normal situations” that occur in MMA fights.
Before I finish, I want to say something: Safety is paramount for the fighters. I’ve often heard that the #1 job of a referee is to keep the fighters safe. Bullshit. The #1 job is to enforce the rules properly (most of which are designed for safety first and fairness secondary.) The very close second job is to keep the fight as safe as an MMA fight can be. If someone is still standing, and is about to be knocked out, then let the knock out happen. Don’t jump in because someone might get hurt. That’s an insult to everyone involved in the entire thing, from the fans, to the fighters, to the trainers, to the managers of the fighting organizations. Yes, you want to keep the fighters safe, but their job is to step up and hurt each other in the most effective manner allowed by the rules. You can’t guarantee 100% safety during their “working hours” like you can a software engineer, receptionist, or a CEO. It’s a different kind of job, dammit.
