Mixed Martial Arts is an unmerciful sport. So brutal, that a match had to be called off at the weekend because there was too much blood.
The Cage Warriors 106 welterweight championship match between Nicolas Dalby and Ross Houston abruptly ended Saturday over the amount of blood that lathered the mat.
Dalby and Houston were finishing going head to head but the match was called off in the third round as the two competitors could barely stand up straight.
The decision was made by referee Marc Goddard who called time to have a look at the canvas of the octagon as both fighters were slipping and sliding around and couldn’t get a proper footing.
“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,” referee Marc Goddard, who officiated the match, told MMA Fighting. “Last night was the first time in 15 years, almost 16 years, that I’ve ever had to make that call.”
“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,” he said.
Goddard said he stopped the fight because of the potential unfair advance one of the competitors could have over the other.
“The reason why I stopped it was due to an unfair advantage, and the unfair advantage in this case was to both fighters,” he said. “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.”
Both fighters celebrated after the match, even though Houston kept the belt.
If you that was it for the two fighters you’d be mistaken because both men agreed that a rematch.
Dalby suggesting that they should battle for a second time on the UFC’s upcoming card in Copenhagen.
