World Series of Fighting lightweight Nick Newell was a one-armed man in a butt-kicking contest against Keon Caldwell.
No, seriously.
It may sound like a joke, but for the 27-year-old wrestler, it’s no laughing matter. A congenital amputee, Newell was born without a left arm below the elbow. A career in combat sports seems far-fetched. He’s at a tremendous disadvantage, especially when defending punches from an opponent’s right hand. Over and over again, you hear coaches yelling at fighters to keep their hands up.
For Newell, that’s an impossibility.
And yet, in 10 professional fights, he’s managed 10 wins. Seven of them have come by way of submission, including in his World Series of Fighting bout against fellow prospect Caldwell, whom Newell forced to tap out in the first round on NBC Sports.
At each level of competition, critics have claimed the fighter in the opposite corner would be the one to prove Newell doesn’t belong in the cage with two-handed foes. Each opponent was pegged as the man who would make this entire Newell experiment seem like an unthinkable farce.
Even UFC President Dana White expressed his doubts.
“Never, no,” White said when asked about bringing Newell into the UFC. “It’s hard to fight here with two arms. It’s tough. There’s guys that we bring in that are considered top guys on The Ultimate Fighter that don’t ever really pan out and make it.”
In response, Newell just wins.
“People are always going to talk about my arm or whatever, I’ve kind of come to terms with it. It’s a part of me, it’s one of the first things you notice when you see me fight as a new viewer, and I like that I can inspire people and do stuff like that,” Newell told Bleacher Report’s Damon Martin. “At the end of the day, I started fighting because I love it, not to prove anything to anyone or show how tough I am. It’s just something I enjoy.”
So far, so good for Newell. But concerns linger. While his success seems to undermine concerns, the fact remains that his missing hand puts him at a competitive disadvantage. What happens when the inevitable occurs and he’s cracked by a hard right hand? Every fighter faces the same danger, but in Newell’s case, there may literally be no defense.
In a sport just introducing itself to the public, to commercial sponsors and to state governments across the country, it may be safer to keep Newell on the sidelines, if only for appearance’s sake. But World Series of Fighting seems all-in.
Matchmaker Ali Abdel-Aziz immediately tweeted his support, and Newell got the biggest response from the crowd after an admittedly impressive win. If a promoter thinks Newell can make him money, he’ll always have a place in the fight game. Whether that’s a good or bad thing remains to be seen.
Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com