In many ways, the sport of MMA has evolved in leaps and bounds since the dark ages of ‘no holds barred’. From the advent of the unified rule set to the work done at regional level by Safe MMA, the progression has been (relatively speaking) rapid an undeniable. Seemingly, there are still places where apparently anything goes. Phoenix Academy’s Jimmy Johnstone gives us his first hand view of this experience…
It’s now been a few days since one of my fighters, Jamie Sloane, fought on Full Metal Dojo 11 in Bangkok, Thailand. The fight was on and off for a while but just 3 weeks out, the fight was finally confirmed. We flew out 4 days before the event to acclimatise and prepare for the bout.
I had had high hopes for the event as these guys are the front runners for MMA in Thailand. Communication was fairly prompt, the flights were fine, and the hotel was great. The fighter insurance was up to date and the cover was ok. Also the pre-fight press evening was reasonably well organised so I was looking forward to the evening and had no reason to suspect the catalogue of disasters that lay ahead.
After the weigh-ins, the fighters were briefed about the schedule. The promoter, Jon Nutt, said something I’ve never heard before at a briefing. “I’m going to be drunk on the evening. I know it’s not professional but I like to get drunk at my own event as it calms my nerves.” If that wasn’t bizarre enough, Jon Nutt ended up taking a last minute fight on his own event, tapped to standing strikes after one minute, and true to his word, went about drinking as much as he could.
The warm up area was in an alleyway outside the venue which was uncomfortably hot; it backed on to a kitchen ventilation unit from the restaurant next door. We were 20ft from our opponent’s warm up area and could see them clearly, as could they us. Out in the alleyway, about 8ft from the six filthy bloodstained warm up mats that ten fighters were having to share, was sewage – oozing from a broken pipe running across the alley.
We got the fighters gloves promptly and started our preparations for the fight. The show started an hour late and pretty quickly all the fighters got a taste of what was about to come. Of the two referees overseeing the evening’s fights, one of them was drinking beer throughout the night. There was a French referee whose name I didn’t catch and I must stress, I didn’t see him with alcohol at any point, and he appeared to be a very competent (and sober!) referee.
The other referee, Dana Blouin, had been drinking steadily since before the first fight. We were getting very worried at this point but it was impossible to speak to anyone to voice my concerns. Of the three promoters that I knew of, one – Jon Nutt – had fought and was partying in the crowd; the second had nothing to do with the actual show (only the organisation before hand); and the third, who was also the DJ, was absolutely paralytically drunk with his lower jaw moving around like a badly dubbed kung-fu film.
Unable to raise my concerns, we went ahead and Jamie’s fight started. It was largely one way traffic as Jamie inflicted massive damage to the local fighter, Masoud Ranjbar. Ranjbar managed a few takedowns but failed to land any significant strikes.
Ten seconds or so before the end of the second round, Jamie was on his knees, in the turtle position with his opponent controlling from the side. His opponent landed a huge headbutt to the back of Jamie’s head, which prompted Blouin to shout, loudly and clearly “NO HEADBUTTS”. It happened right in front of me, close to our corner position. Ranjbar is stood up and warned about the foul. No points were deducted, and the ref looked on as Jamie was on his knees, holding the back of his head. Blouin waved the fight off, giving the local boy a win due to verbal tap out.
Understandably, Jamie was expecting the referee to give him recovery time to get himself together after the foul, but the referee made the call to end the fight – and steal the win away from my fighter.
Up to that point, Jamie had landed strike after strike, so much so in fact that his opponent was rushed to hospital straight from the cage in an ambulance. From what I’m told today, three days after the event, he is still in hospital.
I immediately entered the ring and confronted Blouin, asking him why he stopped the fight without giving the required recovery time. The ref, clearly flustered, told me that the headbutt was to the side of the head, not the back of the head. I asked what relevance that had as headbutts were illegal, period.
He refused to talk further at that point but five minutes later I repeated my question. He said he didn’t see the headbutt clearly enough to make a call on it at the time, which in my opinion is a complete lie. At the end of the evening, I calmly asked him one more time – he said he didn’t see any headbutt and stood the fighters up due to a lack of action.
After the bout, I was very worried as Jamie couldn’t stand, had no balance, and was vomiting pretty much constantly. I asked for a doctor or a paramedic twice over the course of 15 minutes. The show runners didn’t return so I asked someone to look after Jamie to enable me to get a paramedic from ringside. I was told there were none available; they were busy (they were about to be that’s for sure).
As it happens there was no doctor and there were no paramedics, just two young, inexperienced nurses – with no oxygen, or any other equipment that I could see. I took one nurse outside, after looking at Jamie from two feet away for a couple of minutes she was dragged back inside. I followed her inside to find a Cambodian Top Team fighter completely unconscious, not receiving any form of medical attention, lying across a table with lots of drunk people running round not knowing what to do.
I went outside to look after Jamie whilst the event continuing under clearly mounting pressure. Ten minutes later, a fighter was dragged out by his armpits, with his feet trailing behind him, and dropped on the warm up mats on to his back. He was totally unresponsive, and in all honesty I thought he was dead. He was not responding to smelling salts and his eyes had rolled backwards in his head.
With no medical supervision around I took charge as an experienced first aider. I found a pulse and kept him in the recovery position. I shouted for an ambulance as he still was not moving or responding. Unbelievably, because the show continued, we had no nurses dealing with the guys outside in the alleyway, as they were required ringside. One of the promoters came out and had the most ridiculous argument I have ever heard with a staff member, telling him, “If you are that worried put him in a taxi”. But he was so drunk I could barely understand a word he was saying – neither could his staff. After a further 20 minutes, an ambulance came and took him off. I’m not sure if he is still in hospital today, but he was still in there last night.
That fighter being dragged and dumped like that was without a doubt the most haunting sight I have ever seen in the fight game. It really left me speechless.
The show continued and eventually ended. We left, being told to meet the promoters in a pub the next day to get paid. I had hoped that that would be an opportunity to encourage the promoters to see the light and overturn the horribly unfair decision from the previous night. They had been drinking all morning, watching the UFC in the bar, so no real conversation could be had.
I have never felt so cheated, not only by a crooked and incompetent referee, Dana Blouin, but the promotion who stood behind him allowing such a debacle to just unfold out of their control. Even if they were sober enough to be running the evening, they were just so out of their depth in the fight game. They seemed to me to be lacking any real experience. What has stood out the most though, is the complete disregard for fighters safety on their events.
This was not just a shambles delivered by guys who are trying their best, but a much darker and sinister side of the fight game that – thankfully – left England sometime ago. Sadly this side of the fight game is alive and well and without a governing body to throw this sort of activity out of the sport, it’s just going to continue until deaths in our sport become a more regular, unfortunate by product.
When booking fights we [Phoenix Academy] always make sure that the event has enough financial investment, that the event is insured, and the fighters are insured – we make sure that the fighter os covered for medical treatment in the country they’re competing in.. At first glance Full Metal Dojo ticked all the boxes. Sadly though, appearances can be deceptive.
At the time of writing, The Sprawl have not attempted to reach out to Full Metal Dojo. The above article is the personal views of Jimmy Johnstone and does not represent those of The Sprawl.
