Cedric
Doumbe recently suffered the first professional loss of his
mixed martial arts career against Baissangour
Chamsoudinov due to an odd mishap.
Advertisement
When the decorated kickboxer complained about an issue with his
foot in the third round of his
PFL Europe main event bout, referee Marc Goddard
asked him to continue. Doumbe was addressing the issue a second
time, this time to his opponent, when Goddard called a stop to the
contest, declaring Chamsoudinov the winner via injury stoppage.
Sharing his side of things, Doumbe revealed that there was a
splinter in his foot during the fight. The Frenchman was initially
unable to explain the issue to Goddard, as he wasn’t aware of the
English term for the word “splinter.” Doumbe then made eye contact
with his fellow French opponent, who could see his discomfort. When
Doumbe told Chamsoudinov about the splinter, “Baki” explained it to
Goddard but it was already too late.
“At first, if you see the footage, I tried to remove it by myself
with the other foot. It didn’t work,” “The MMA Hour”. “So then I raised my hand, I
talked to the referee, I said ‘I have something under my foot.’ As
I didn’t know how to say ‘splinter,’ I said I have something under
my foot. He said ‘Don’t stop, keep going.’ Then I was like, ‘Okay,
he doesn’t want to understand, he doesn’t even want to listen’, so
I kept going.
“And then I was looking into ‘Baki’s eyes, I was like, ‘Okay I can
remove it by myself but I don’t want him to kick me in the head.’
But I know he is not that type of guy. So I look at him and he saw
there is something wrong with my foot. He told like, ‘What’s
wrong?’ I said, ‘I have a splinter, it’s annoying, you know’ in
French. He said, ‘Just remove it.’ And then he talked to the
referee, he said, ‘Let him remove the thing.’ And then I stopped
also looking at the referee and then he stopped the fight.”
Doumbe, in his defense, claims to have not stopped the fight the
second time. The French star blames Goddard for robbing him, a sold
out Accor Arena in Paris and world fans of a fight that took months
of build-up and preparation.
“And then I was shocked,” he said. “I was like, ‘What the hell is
happening?’ And the referee is saying, ‘You cannot stop the fight.’
I said, ‘Yes I know, but I didn’t stop the fight.’ I was cool you
know, I was relaxed. I said, ‘Marc can I say something?’ He said,
‘Yes.’[I said,] ‘You told me I cannot stop the fight, I said yes
that’s the rule. I kept going, I kept fighting. But the second time
I didn’t stop the fight. I came [to] talk to you and then you
stopped me.’ And then he said, ‘No you cannot stop the fight.’ He
didn’t wanna listen to me. I was very sad because we trained three
months, my team and me we did a lot of marketing around that fight.
That was sold out, the crowd, even the world fans everybody was
waiting for that fight. And Marc Goddard
just stole the fight you know.”
With a combat sports career spanning over nearly a decade, Doumbe
is no stranger to fighting with injuries. While he understands that
injury stoppages are fairly common, he believes a splinter getting
inside his foot was an anomaly that should have been dealt with
accordingly.
“To be a referee, to be judge, that’s very very complicated. So I
understand that. But you have to listen to me. I have fought with
two broken ribs, even actually I’m fighting with my wrist broken,”
said Doumbe. “But I’m fighting, I’m training, so I’m not like a
little girl, I can fight, I’m a man. But a splinter is something
outside the fight you know.”
Both Doumbe and Chamsoudinov have expressed interest in a rematch
down the road.