BKFC fighter attacks referee, no ring girls in Saudi Arabia, Ilia Topuria goes off on Conor McGregor
By Amy Kaplan
I'll be breaking down the news from around the combat sports world and giving you my take on it in this new daily column. Check back every morning to see the biggest or most obscure headlines and what I think about them below.
Watch BKFC fighter Keith Richardson instinctively fight referee after TKO
Scary scene at BKFC 62. Keith Richardson gets TKO’d and instinctively tries to fight the referee. #BKFC62 pic.twitter.com/634dghzAFK
— FULL SEND MMA (@full_send_mma) June 22, 2024
THE NEWS: On Friday night at BKFC 62, the referee stepped in to stop the fight between Keith Richardson and Alberto Blas. Richardson was so dazed from the TKO that he instinctively tried to fight the referee and it took several men to break them apart.
MY THOUGHTS: These kinds of things are more common than you think. It's more often stopped immediately though and this seemed to go longer than normal. But Richardson shouldn't feel bad about it, he was just doing what his body was trained to do.
The UFC Octagon girls aren't in Saudi Arabia
khabib had a point tbh. I didn't even realise there were no ufc ring girls until reddit pointed it out. pic.twitter.com/jsMAb09jWz
— Dovy🔌 (@DovySimuMMA) June 22, 2024
THE NEWS: Eagle-eyed fans noticed that there were no Octagon girls present for the UFC Saudi Arabia ceremonial weigh-ins.
MY THOUGHTS: I don't have a lot of opinions about the Octagon girls, they don't affect the fights so I don't pay a ton of attention to what's going on in that world. That said, I think women should be allowed to do whatever they want and if the Saudis banned them from coming, that's not ok in my book. We already know that women's MMA is allowed in Saudi Arabia, so we may want to wait and see why they aren't there before making a big stand. Perhaps they'll be at the fights tonight? We'll see.
Ilia Topuria goes off on Conor McGregor
You are mentally broken. That is your biggest lesson. You doubt yourself, your abilities, your preparation, that's why you don't show up. You are a bitch. https://t.co/1Uy9YaLSqK
— Ilia Topuria (@Topuriailia) June 22, 2024
THE NEWS: UFC featherweight champion Ilia Topuria went off on Conor McGregor after he revealed he'd withdrawn from UFC 303 due to a broken toe. "You are mentally broken," he wrote. "That is your biggest lesson. You doubt yourself, your abilities, your preparation, that's why you don't show up. You are a b**ch."
MY THOUGHTS: Topuria is wrong here. No fighter should be forced to fight at anything but 100 percent (I talk about it at length here). I think Topuria is just trying to drum up excitement for a potential fight between him and McGregor as he's been calling him out for years now.
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