I lördags hade ’Cage Warriors’ slagit på stort, då de arrangerade hela sex stycken titelmatcher under deras 106e event. Galans huvudmatch stod mellan den tidigare UFC-fightern Nicolas Dalby och den obesegrade skotten Ross Houston. Matchen slutade på ett ovanligt vis och domarveteranen Marc Goddard spelade en avgörande roll. I en intervju med ’MMA Fighting’ berättade han om sina upplevelser från matchen
”Aldrig sett något liknande på 16 år”
Goddard är en veteran i ordets rätta bemärkelse och har dömt MMA-matcher i ett och ett halvt decennier. Trots sin stora erfarenhet var händelserna i helgens match en ny upplevelse för honom.
I’ve said this many times at seminars around the world to would-be officials, but in MMA you’ve never quite seen it all. Last night was the first time in 15 years, almost 16 years, that I’ve ever had to make that call.
Vidare berättar Goddard hur han upplevde fighten, utifrån sin position som den tredje mannen i buren.
Nicolas was the first to get cut, an elbow caused his cut. Where he suffered the cut, on the side of his forehead, there are lots of little capillaries that make it spurt blood, that wasn’t going to stop [bleeding]. Obviously, I stopped the fight, let the doctor have a look at it and the fight was safe to continue. Then Ross gets a badly broken nose. Now, both guys are bleeding all over each other. So I’m looking at it, trying to make an assessment because both guys would not stop bleeding.
”Jag kunde brutit min vrist”
I tredje ronden var det så mycket blod på kanvasen att alla i buren hade svårt att få fäste och halkade runt därinne.
Around the midway point of the third-round, I could see that it was becoming very difficult for the fighters to get any purchase on the surface due to the amount of blood. I called the doctor in and at that stage he said that the fight is still safe to continue.
Goddard valde slutligen att bryta matchen i slutet av den tredje ronden på grund av ”orättvist övertag”.
The reason why I stopped it was due to an unfair advantage, and the unfair advantage in this case was to both fighters. Why? Because if one was bleeding excessively it could’ve been stopped in the other fighter’s favor. As we can clearly see, both of them were bleeding excessively. It was almost comical; I was about to lose my footing, I could’ve broken my ankle. I wouldn’t care if that happened to me, but I would really care if it happened to a fighter.
Matchen slutade i en ’no-contest’, vilket innebär att matchen aldrigt ägt rum enligt den officiella statistiken. Det är i skrivandes stund oklart om det kommer bli en ’re-match’ mellan de både eller om någon kommer få chansen i UFC.
