The main event of UFC 91 ended with Brock Lesnar knocking Randy Couture to the canvas, jumping on top of him, and then striking him repeatedly on the ground before the referee stopped the fight. UFC President Dana White says the fight should have been stopped sooner. White tells the Los Angeles Times:
"The ref [Mario Yamasaki] was going, 'Eh, is [Couture] OK?' Mario was trying to give him time [to recover]. There's a fine line between that and [allowing] too many punches. When I saw Randy go back down, I thought we had crossed that line."I agree that the stoppage was a little slow, but I think the damage to Couture was really done with that first big punch that knocked him to the ground and the first couple of strikes after Lesnar got on top of him.
And Couture himself said he thinks there's nothing wrong with the number of punches he took before the fight was stopped.
When a German reporter asked Couture afterward whether such a beating doesn't call into question whether MMA is a legitimate sport, Couture said that was ridiculous:
"We fall under every regulatory commission in this country. This is definitely a sport. I guess I would question because of that scenario why it wouldn't be considered a sport?"Here's the audio of Couture's answer, via Steve Cofield:
Click below to listen to Couture/Lesnar comments on the brutality of the ending:
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Comments (Page 1 of 1)
I think the ref did a good job
Once down Randy kept his hand up for a while to try to defend has much. Once the ref saw that Randy was not defending himself he stoped it
I think it was a great job by the ref
And of course this is a sport
It seemed a proper stoppage. Randy wasn't out, though he was prone. If he'd been knocked out, I'm sure the ref would have stepped in sooner. As it were, he was down but not necessarily out and he did seem to be defending himself. The ref only stopped the fight when it became obvious that Randy wasn't going to be able to recover with a freakish monster of a man in such a dominant position. The ref just gave Randy the time a fighter of his stature should be allowed if he is still awake and defending.
It's no different from any number of fights where a fighter gets a mount and lands punches for 30 seconds but doesn't accomplish enough to end the fight. The main difference is how frightening it is to watch Brock Lesnar do it to someone Vs watching basically anyone else alive do that very same thing.
White is just trying to head off any bad publicity.
The punch that he took standing did most of the damage. Luckily for Randy, Brock was rushing the punches on the ground instead of loading up. I believe the stoppage was correct.