Eric Nicksick is definitely not thrilled with the stoppage of Chris Curtis in opposition to Roman Kopylov at UFC Vegas 101, however that’s not what his largest level of anger.
Kopylov picked up a third-round TKO win over Curtis on the principle card this previous Saturday in a combat that was stopped by referee Mark Smith with only one second left. Kopylov landed a head kick that dropped Curtis, Kopylov walked away, and Smith halted the bout. Curtis was furious, as was Nicksick, his head coach.
Nicksick believes there could also be a little bit of a vendetta, and was requested if he’d be keen to take the right steps in eradicating Smith as a referee for all of his group’s bouts sooner or later.
“I’m going to search out that out 100%,” Nicksick stated on his podcast Verse Us. “It’s simply too far gone. I do know this man too effectively, anecdotally, by all my experiences with him, and on a private stage of what I’ve seen with different individuals, different [fights]. There’s no manner that this man can’t maintain a grudge or a bias. There’s simply no manner.
“He fraternizes with different gyms and groups and fighters and coaches, and all the pieces else. So there’s simply… to me the strains have been blurred. I believe he’s an egomaniac. I’ve by no means heard of a ref ask individuals to vote for him for MMA Ref of the 12 months [at the World MMA Awards]. I’ve by no means gotten a textual content from Herzog, Herb Dean asking for votes for MMA Ref of the 12 months. …
“Deep down, he’s an excellent dude. He’s a perfectionist, he tries to be the perfect at his craft. I can’t hate him on that, however he has an ego — and I do, too. Everybody does. However there’s no manner that I consider that going ahead, he’s going to offer us a good shake. I simply don’t. He’s our Eddie ‘The Mush’ [from A Bronx Tale].”
Nicksick says the stoppage was simply cherry on high of the sundae, and admits that Curtis shouldn’t have put himself ready to get head kicked. Within the second when Nicksick was fired up, it appeared he was simply as upset in regards to the buzzer-beater controversial wave off as Curtis was.
It really all started earlier than both fighter made their option to the octagon.
“It was the truth that previous to the combat, the referee comes and asks, ‘Do you’ve any questions or considerations?’,” Nicksick defined. “Chris Curtis went on and stated, ‘This man will discover methods to stall: What are you going to do if, and when he does stall? And the way are you going to attain it, or how are you going to deal with that?’ We laid out a sport plan of how we’re going to assault and strategy the sport plan — that Spherical 1 was going to damaged up into two segments for us. Spherical 1 was going to be Rounds 1 and a pair of.
“The way in which that Chris fights, he begins gradual, so I wished him to select up the tempo. The tempo was going to select up the second half of Spherical 1, into Spherical 2 and, mainly, the beginning of Spherical 3. However our query was, ‘Once we begin going downhill, and he begins to stall, how are you going to deal with it?’ And we had been instructed one thing completely different then the way in which he dealt with it within the combat. That’s what I’m pissed off about. You by no means get three timeouts in a f*cking combat.
“No. 1, spit his mouthpiece out. OK. ‘Maintain on, let me get your mouthpiece,’ that wasn’t too dangerous. All proper, groin strike. OK, time. Now that is, bear in mind, when the momentum was the place? Chris was going downhill. You guys hear me yelling ‘Oregon, no huddle,’ maintain that f*cking offense on the sphere and maintain the strain. Then the attention poke.
“Calmly stated to Mark, ‘Hey, that’s two infractions in a row on this spherical. The place’s the purpose?’ And he appears to be like again at myself and Nate [Pettit], and he’s like… ‘Let me f*cking deal with…,’ OK, however we instructed you that this was going to occur prior and also you gave us a solution of what you’d do to deal with it, and also you’re not doing what you stated to deal with it. That’s what we had been pissed off about.”
Curtis has now dropped two straight, and solely has one victory to his title in his previous 5 outings, and is now pondering a return to welterweight — the place he competed most of his profession earlier than signing with the UFC.
Nicksick is aware of Curtis would’ve misplaced the choice had Smith not stopped the combat, however to him as a coach, and fighter advocate, it was the improper option to finish a combat like that.
“So the stoppage, questionable,” Nicksick stated. “In case you’re a f*cking… any fighter on the planet figuring out that there’s one second left, and the man walks away — there’s not a follow-up punch, he’s not coming in to kill, no matter — the probabilities are we’re going to lose on the scorecard now, and I get that. Within the second, I felt we had been up two rounds. I felt we [won the first two rounds]. Now trying again, we weren’t. We might’ve misplaced the choice. OK, it’s what it’s.
“You determined to cease the combat with one second left when there was no extra injury that was going to be taken, when two guys poured their coronary heart and soul out for quarter-hour and gave us a conflict, in the event you’ve ever carried out your homework and watched a Chris Curtis combat, King of Fight, that’s what you get. Let the motherf*cker exit on his defend, bro. That was some bitch shit.”
