UFC Vegas 3 was a few days ago now and we had a couple of good fights, especially Josh Emmett vs Shane Burgos which is definitely a top 10 fight for this year as it stands. Yet, the biggest news to come out the fights this week was Max Rohskopf on his UFC debut quitting in between the 2nd and 3rd rounds.
Some may say he’s weak and he should’ve fought to the end, but they don’t know how taxing physically and mentally MMA is. If your head isn’t in the right frame of mind then you should not be fighting at all. Max also took the fight on short notice, having about a week to prepare, a lot of fans don’t bear in mind how long training camps are and should be. A lot of fighters need an ample amount of time to get into the right physical and mental state to compete and I believe Max is one of those fighters.
I completely respect his decision to quit because as a fighter you know your own body best and the fighter’s health always comes first. Combat sport athletes put their life on the line every time they step into the ring, mat or octagon and if they don’t feel good they should be permitted to quit. If Max continued and got clocked with a right and suffered a concussion he would be in a worse place than he is by quitting.
I also want to touch on his coach as well, who was persistent in trying to keep Max going. I believe he wasn’t being selfish and was just simply motivating his fighter to win. However, after Max saying ‘Call it’ several times he should’ve thrown in the towel instead of Max telling the referee Mark Smith he wanted the fight to be stopped.
According to statements by his coach Max regrets his decision but at the time if that’s how he was feeling it was the right thing to do.
TheWrestlingFallacy 