I’ll tell you a quick story. We were at a fighter summit. It was the first ever UFC fighter summit. They hold them every year now. They bring all the guys out. They have all sorts of courses on everything under the roof. But one of the things that Dana White got up and talked about is he said, ‘guys, if you’re ever fouled in a fight I do not expect you to continue.’ And the reason I remember it was two-fold. One, because that would ruin a show. I was shocked that a promoter was saying this. If there’s ever one guy who really needs a show to go on… and Dana told us all, ‘No, we don’t expect you to continue.’ And Dana gave us a statistic. Now this is old. This is from the 2009 or the 2010 fighter summit, so I don’t know if this statistic is still true. But Dana told us in the history of the UFC only one person has ever been fouled and come back to win. So he was making a point that if you’re fouled and the other guy cheats, whether it’s an accident or on purpose… and you don’t want to continue, don’t. ‘Don’t listen to the crowd and don’t think I’m going to be mad. If you’re fouled, you’re fouled, you don’t have to continue.’
That was retired UFC middleweight Chael Sonnen speaking on Aaron Tru’s The Brutally Honest Show about Matt Mitrione’s recent loss to Travis Browne at UFC Fight Night 81 in Boston. Mitrione lashed out after the loss to say the choice shouldn’t have been his to stop the fight after being fouled twice by Browne, and that the referee or cageside doctor should have “saved him” from his own decisions. The decision to continue was costly for Mitrione, not only in losing his win purse but also suffering a broken orbital socket that will require surgery to repair. Had “Meathead” used his noggin and decided not to continue it would appear, based on Sonnen’s testimony, that he wouldn’t have hurt his career anyway. Still, I think Mitrione’s point stands that fighters shouldn’t be put in that position at all and if a fighter is fouled it should end the fight. It would certainly be interesting to get some updated data on that claim that fouled fighters almost never win fights. I can think of at least one famous example where Georges St-Pierre was fouled with an eyepoke by Jake Shields in the third round of a fight in which he was in complete control, before going on to lose the fourth and fifth rounds. That was unheard of in St-Pierre’s reign of terror. Thoughts?