Former UFC title challenger Chael Sonnen has expressed his disgust with Marc Montoya and Anthony Smith’s entire corner at UFC Jacksonville for not throwing in the towel.
During his main event bout on Wednesday (the 13th) Anthony Smith was defeated by Glover Teixeira via TKO in the fifth round. From the third round, Smith was dominated having lots of damage inflicted on him throughout the next 2 rounds. After complaining about his injuries to his corner between rounds a lot of people believe they should have thrown in the towel for their fighter.
One of these people is Chael Sonnen who expressed his rage in a video on his YouTube channel.
“How does a corner not stop the fight?, you not stop the fight when your athlete can no longer move, you stop the fight when your athlete can no longer win. Which only comes from two things one of two things, he got injured, or he’s exhausted. Either way those aren’t fixable in the moment and you don’t leave him out there to toughen him up.”
“If I’m fighting and the referee comes to talk to me and I don’t say a word, I turn and walk away like I don’t hear him I’m sending a signal to my tag team partner to get me to the back. He goes to the corner, he tells his corner, he’s bleeding out of everywhere, he’s completely exhausted then he shares to his corner “my teeth are falling out”. These are signals and nobody thought to get him the hell out of there? He’s exhausted.”
Following the event, Anthony shared his injuries with ESPN’s Ariel Helwani stating that he has broken his nose, broken an orbital bone, and lost two of his teeth.
What did you think of the stoppage at UFC Jacksonville?, Should his corner have stopped it earlier?