A flyweight bout between Davina Maciel and Tatiane Couto ended in controversy at Super Fight League’s event in Mumbai, India, on Sunday night.
Couto quickly dropped Maciel with a right hand, then eventually took her back and won via TKO. The whole fight lasted less than two minutes, but Couto clearly connected on at least three illegal punches to the back of the head. In fact, the referee simply stood there and watched while Maciel clearly couldn’t continue fighting.
“Brutus” Couto was declared the winner, but Maciel doesn’t think it was fair.
Tatiane Couto TKOs Davina Michel
— Jolassanda (@Jolassanda) February 18, 2018
hope that Davina will be OK (SFL) pic.twitter.com/qHMlLx7A2O
”They say you can’t hit the back of the head,” Maciel told MMA Fighting. “The referee was blind or he didn’t want to stop. He was standing right in front of me. She had hit me in the back of the head earlier, and then she landed more. From that moment on, I don’t remember anything.”
”I remember that we went to the ground, I tried to use my jiu-jitsu, and then I don’t remember anything that happened,” she added. “I woke up when I was on a stretcher, outside the cage. I don’t remember much of what happened. I still feel pain in my head. I went to the doctor and we did some exams and there’s nothing (wrong), but I’m feeling some pain. That’s it. Other than that, it’s all fine.”
Maciel doesn’t speak English, and neither does anyone from her team in India. She entered the cage with a 6-2 record, and now worries that she will return to Brazil with a defeat that she doesn’t feel is right.
”They should have stopped the fight,” Maciel said. “I don’t want to cause any problem to the promotion, but they should have saw it right there.”
The fight starts at the 46:00 mark on this stream.