Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson lost a competitive fight to hometown favorite Darren Till in Liverpool last weekend, and Till injured “Wonderboy’s” knee midway through the fight, which Thompson says made it difficult to move the way he wanted to move.
The fight was almost entirely contested on the feet, as the karateka and Muay Thai practitioner went to work for five long rounds. Till worked some effected kicks to “Wonderboy’s” knee before scoring a knockdown later in the fight.
“Wonderboy” admits those knee kicks from Till took their toll, and the injury to his left knee, which he’s had multiple surgeries on in the past, made it impossible for him to get his game going, Thompson revealed on The MMA Hour:
“It was almost like this dude was trying to put me out. He hit me in the knee and after that my movement was pretty much out the window. I was more focused on keeping my knee — it was just another thing to think about out there.”
“Hopefully it’s nothing major. But it sucks, man. It really does. Disappointed by the whole situation and then coming out of it with an injury like that, it makes it all worse. It was more trying to keep my leg from collapsing than anything. It just really felt unstable in that fifth round.
“I was trying to hit the guy hard, I really was. I just was unable to put myself in a situation to do so.”
Till took home a unanimous decision victory, although many fight fans and fellow fighters believe “Wonderboy” should have taken the judges’ decision.
Till ended up weighing in several pounds overweight the day before the fight and was forced to stay under 188 pounds on fight day. He managed to do so, and the fight went on as scheduled.
While the two looked to basically be the same size, “Wonderboy” concedes that Till is definitely thicker and sturdier than he looks:
“When you make contact [with an opponent], you can tell you’re pretty much the same size,” he said. “When I would kick or even side kick or even try to punch Darren Till, you could tell that he was a pretty solid dude. You can’t really see it in his upper body, but you can see it in his lower body. He’s thick — thick guy.”
What do you think of this kind of knee kicks employed by Jon Jones, Darren Till and the like?
Are they a cheap tactic designed solely injure a fighter unfairly, or is it just a legitimate MMA technique?
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