Cedric Doumbe’s first MMA loss occurred when the referee stopped the fight after Doumbe indicated an issue with his foot, later revealed to be a foreign object lodged in it.
Cedric Doumbe’s first MMA defeat was, well, weird.
It happened on a Thursday night. Doumbe was up against Baysangur Chamsoudinov in PFL Europe’s main event. The venue? Accor Arena in Paris.
Big night for Doumbe, one of PFL’s shining stars. But, it didn’t end well. Referee Marc Goddard halted the fight in the third round. Why? Doumbe had a foot issue.
In round one, Chamsoudinov was all over Doumbe. Wrestling him to the mat, again and again. Doumbe managed to get up each time, but Chamsoudinov’s wrestling was relentless. Doumbe was stumped.
Round two was better for Doumbe. He stayed on his feet more. His right hand started landing more punches. Round three was shaping up to be a good one. Until the bizarre incident happened.
There was a pause in the fight. Goddard wanted action. Chamsoudinov pointed at Doumbe, like “come at me”. Doumbe looked at Goddard and pointed at his foot. Something was wrong. Goddard jumped in and stopped the fight. Doumbe protested, but it was too late.
After the fight, Doumbe said there was a foreign object in his foot. He just wanted to remove it and keep fighting.
“I didn’t want to stop the fight, not at all,” Doumbe said. “I wanted to fight, as everybody saw. … But I have a small glass in my foot. I don’t know, inside the cage. It’s hurting me. I just wanted to remove it and keep going. So the referee told me, ‘You can’t stop.’ I said OK. I wanted to fight, and then my opponent is looking at me, he says something is annoying me, just remove it, and then we stop both, together. Looking at the referee, and then he stopped the fight. That’s not his fault, that’s the referee’s fault. It is what it is.”
The loss puts Doumbe at 5-1 in his MMA career. Chamsoudinov? He’s now 8-0.