The Only Rule You’ll Ever Need to Determine Whether a Fight Was Stopped Too Early
(Props: Smoogy on the UG)
Josh Koscheck’s TKO loss has been the subject of a lot of debate on the old internets for the past couple of days. Some people think the stoppage was too fast, not giving Koscheck the chance to recover and defend himself. One of those people, obviously, is Koscheck himself (side note: man, give that camera man credit for going into a tense locker room, hearing that rant, and then having the balls to ask, very simply, “Do you think he should have stopped it?”), but the fact is he’s wrong, and so is everyone arguing his side in this case.
Here’s how you know your fight was stopped early: you can immediately look into the ref’s face as he moves in to stop the bout and say, ‘What the fuck is your problem?’ If you can do that, preferably without slurring or attempting to rise and then falling back down, then you have a legitimate gripe. I like to call this the ‘What the fuck is your problem?’ rule.
If you can’t say ‘What the fuck is your problem?’ (other acceptable variations include: ‘What the fuck are you doing?’, ‘That’s fucking bullshit!’, and ‘Mazzagatti, you asshole!’) immediately after the stoppage, then the ref had reason enough to stop the fight.
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