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 greatest level of anger.
Kopylov picked up a third-round TKO win over Curtis on the principle card this previous Saturday in a battle 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 correct steps in eradicating Smith as a referee for all of his crew’s bouts sooner or later.
“I’m going to seek out that out 100%,” Nicksick stated on his podcast Verse Us. “It’s simply too far gone. I do know this man too nicely, anecdotally, by means of all my experiences with him, and on a private stage of what I’ve seen with different folks, different [fights]. There’s no method that this man can’t maintain a grudge or a bias. There’s simply no method.
“He fraternizes with different gyms and groups and fighters and coaches, and the whole lot 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 folks to vote for him for MMA Ref of the Yr [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 Yr. …
“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 method that I consider that going ahead, he’s going to present 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 able 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 truly all started earlier than both fighter made their option to the octagon.
“It was the truth that previous to the battle, the referee comes and asks, ‘Do you have got 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 method 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 couple of.
“The way in which that Chris fights, he begins gradual, so I needed him to select up the tempo. The tempo was going to select up the second half of Spherical 1, into Spherical 2 and, principally, 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 have been informed one thing completely different then the way in which he dealt with it within the battle. That’s what I’m pissed off about. You by no means get three timeouts in a f*cking battle.
“No. 1, spit his mouthpiece out. OK. ‘Maintain on, let me get your mouthpiece,’ that wasn’t too unhealthy. All proper, groin strike. OK, time. Now that is, keep in mind, when the momentum was the place? Chris was going downhill. You guys hear me yelling ‘Oregon, no huddle,’ preserve that f*cking offense on the sphere and preserve 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 again at myself and Nate [Pettit], and he’s like… ‘Let me f*cking deal with…,’ OK, however we informed 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 have 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 battle, however to him as a coach, and fighter advocate, it was the mistaken option to finish a battle like that.
“So the stoppage, questionable,” Nicksick stated. “In case you’re a f*cking… any fighter on this planet realizing 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 possibilities are we’re going to lose on the scorecard now, and I get that. Within the second, I felt we have 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 battle 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 warfare, in case you’ve ever accomplished your homework and watched a Chris Curtis battle, King of Fight, that’s what you get. Let the motherf*cker exit on his defend, bro. That was some bitch shit.”
