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The recent Ken Shamrock-Kazushi Sakuraba fight at Pride 30 has created quite a bit of a stir about whether the 1st round referee stoppage was premature or justified. While organizations such as Pride and the UFC continually claim fighter safety is always first and foremost, it would appear from past Pride events the company has been less then consistent when determining if a fight should be allowed to continue once a fighter appears to be in trouble.
The recent Ken Shamrock-Kazushi Sakuraba fight at Pride 30 has created quite a bit of a stir about whether the 1st round referee stoppage was premature or justified. While organizations such as Pride and the UFC continually claim fighter safety is always first and foremost, it would appear from past Pride events the company has been less then consistent when determining if a fight should be allowed to continue once a fighter appears to be in trouble. Shamrock was clearly rocked by a left hook and fell backwards toward the ropes. He then made the mistake of turning his back indicating he was not in the best position to defend himself, but when compared with some other recent fights in Pride this would certainly appear to be an early stoppage. For instance, at Pride Final Conflict 2004 Yuki Kondo sustained quite a bit of unnecessary punishment in his fight with Wanderlei Silva due to poor officiating. After an exchange of punches Kondo was floored and Silva quickly moved in and proceeded to unload his trademark foot stomp, SEVEN to be exact. Kondo clearly wasn’t in any position to defend himself after the 3rd of 4th stomp and the referee was in an excellent position right on top of the action, but he elected not to intervene. If this was truly about fighter safety then surely the referee would have moved in and stopped any additional damage, however after Silva was finally pulled away Kondo appeared to be completely motionless. Also, at Pride Final Conflict 2003 the first encounter between Wanderlei Silva and Quinton Jackson, Rampage unfortunately endured an enormous amount of unnecessary punishment. After Silva received a yellow card for inactivity on the ground, the fight was restarted with both fighters on their feet and almost immediately Silva was able to get into a clinch where he connected with 13 devastating knee’s and Rampage was clearly out on his feet. Shortly afterwards Jackson fell to the ground and received two additionally soccer kicks to the head without so much as a referee intervention. This only references two recent Pride fights, but there are countless more as Pride has always had the reputation as the organization that pushes the envelope, by allowing knee strikes to the head on the ground, and kicking a downed opponent in the head they have never had to operate under the scrutiny which has plagued the UFC. Therefore, at the very least a veteran like Shamrock should have been given a few more seconds to show whether he could or couldn’t defend himself. He really only took one solid punch from Sakuraba, the two follow up shots appeared to be glancing blows. It could be argued while Shamrock was down on his knees he may have been able to reach for one of Sakuraba’s legs and get himself out of danger, or he could have been legitimately stopped via strikes. However, due to the timing of the stoppage this fight will forever remembered as a contest that will eventually generate an unnecessary rematch or quite possibly be the controversial ending to Ken Shamrock’s storied MMA career.
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