Eight seconds.
In life, eight seconds doesn’t isn’t really any grand significance of time, unless you just so happen to be a bullrider. Beyond that, however, most people wouldn’t look at eight seconds as anything more than a blink of time.
That’s not the case for former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski. Eight seconds was a very important amount of time for him, given what happened in his last fight.
Arlovski was battling Anthony Johnson in World Series of Fighting back in March when the first round was supposed to be over. Suspiciously, there was no final bell or horn to actually stop the action. Instead, Johnson cracked Arlovski with a huge punch that sent him tumbling back towards the canvas.
It was later revealed that the shot broke the Belarus native’s jaw.
Now to make it clear, the punch was clean, there was nothing done illegally from Johnson. The only problem is the punch shouldn’t have happened.
See, the punch from Johnson that connected flush with Arlovski’s jaw came during an eight second period after the first round should have ended.
A study of the first round between Arlovski and Johnson reveals that the round lasted five minutes and eight seconds, and the round is, of course, supposed to be over at the five minute mark.
Numerous emails to the New Jersey State Athletic Commission asking for a statement on the matter were exchanged just after the fight, but there was never an answer, excuse or reason why the eight second overage occurred.
Arlovski and his camp knew it happened, and normally those extra seconds ticking away probably wouldn’t matter—if not for the shattered jaw that happened during the extra time.
Now Arlovski is headed back to the scene of the crime. His fight this weekend at World Series of Fighting also takes place in New Jersey, where the same commission will oversee the proceedings.
Not wishing to stir the pot any further nearly six months after the incident happened, Arlovski takes the high road when talking about the New Jersey State Athletic Commission but it’s obvious that the sore feelings aren’t fading away just yet.
“In some respects the athletic commission in the last fight cost me health, it cost me money, it cost me time, so of course I’m happy to fight. I’m very happy to face Mike Kyle,” Arlovski said about his next fight. “For now I’m going to keep my mouth shut. You can see all the reasons the athletic commission was wrong, but I accept the athletic commission.”
As the conversation moves forward, there’s an angry tone in Arlovski’s voice because no matter how much he doesn’t want to say anything that could land him in hot water with the commission for his next fight, there are still bitter feelings about what happened in the fight with Johnson.
There’s no way to know if the fight would have gone any differently for Arlovski, but he’s haunted by the fact that those eight additional seconds in the round cost him a broken jaw and obviously lessened his chances of coming back in rounds two and three.
As he steps into his next fight against Mike Kyle this weekend, Arlovski plans on making it very easy on the timekeeper and the commission in general.
“F—k it, I’m ready to fight. I’m not going to leave this up to the New Jersey Athletic Commission or any athletic commission any more, f—k it,” Arlovski said with a growl. “I will try to hurt him. It’s nothing personal, it’s just business.”
If there is one other thorn in Arlovski’s side heading into the fight against Kyle it’s the perception out there that he has developed a glass jaw from being knocked out a few times in his career. It puts him into a rage when people try to say he can’t take a punch anymore and just can’t survive in the striking game with the elite punchers in MMA.
The one positive Arlovski says he can take away from the way his last fight ended is that he ended up with a broken jaw in the first round and still made it all the way to the final horn without ever giving up and never going down.
That’s for his own personal edification, by the way, because he doesn’t seem to care too much what anyone says about him. Arlovski does enjoy proving people wrong, however, and he wants to do it again this weekend.
“I think I will shut many f—king mouths who said I lost because I have a weak chin, a glass jaw,” Arlovski said. “I fought two more f—king rounds with a broken jaw. I don’t need to prove anything to anybody.”
Damon Martin is a Featured Columnist at Bleacher Report and all quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.
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