Nicely put.

I found Breen’s “perfunctory hammerfists” remark really offensive. A) How often does a fighter strike a near-out/out opponent “perfunctorily”? B) What authority does Breen have to make that kind of blanket statement about the danger of those strikes?

The bottom line is: we can’t expect stoppages to be perfect all the time, so you have to have a bias one way or the other between early or late ones. Late stoppages mean more brain injuries. Early stoppages mean more messageboard controversies. Not really a tough choice.

Kos was severely rocked by the uppercut and put away by the hook. I think Thiago knew he had KO’d him, even if it was a flash KO.

Kos – build a bridge, get over it. You can’t throw a jab, looking at the ground and not expect to be punished. Better off learning now than in a title fight.

and he didn’t get hit when he went down…

We’ll never know how completely rocked Kos was but I thought good stoppage at the time and still do.

He’ll learn a huge lesson from it. He was dominating Thiago on the feet and should have kept to the gameplan and stuck to solid, technical boxing.

It’s pretty obvious to anyone with a brain that Kod got KTFO. You can argue semantics all day long but at the end of the day taking fighter safety into consideration, there is no way that ref can let that fight go on after the way Kos dropped like a sack of potatoes.

End of story.

lets not forget the recoil effect that mma fighters suffer from their head being bounced of the mat, and i dont just mean after falling down, but the punches landed aftewards with a stunned fighters head agianst the mat. didn’t FightScience prove that punches and elbows from an mma fighter from the top mount were much harder than top hw boxers punch’s from a standing position. the only thing keeping kos from being knocked into complete unconsious was the ref. same as the rampage/chuck fight when chuck jumped up real quick.

he jumped up quick after the 2nd punch, but was clearly out of it. i’m with the thinking that kos was acting upon instinct’s, not intelligently defending himself.

Here is yet another argument. Watch the end of the fight, specifically how the ref moves in.

He moves in faster than Thiago. When he moves over Koscheck, he got there roughly the same time as Thiago would have gotten there if the fight had continued to go on.

As soon as the ref moves over Koscheck, Koscheck tries to get up and grabs onto the ref’s arm with a distinct “what the fuck are you doing?” look.

I see, at this point, no reason at all to be certain that Kos was going to continue getting hit hard by Thiago. He had a very, very good chance to pull guard and hold on until he recovered fully.

It seemed quick to me. before this I thought it was almost impossible to knock out Kos. With GSP and Alves knocking him silly like that, he seemed impervious. I was sad to see that stoppage, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the system. Refs most often get it right on. The most important thing is that they’re in position to intervene right when their mind tells them to. That’s a lot harder than it looks. Ultimately, we rely on the referee. They usually make the right decision. We shouldn’t hold it against them when they make a poor one, especially if they err on the side of safety rather than too many shots.

That said, I’d love to see a bit of a gentleman’s code (an oxymoron in mma, I know) in fighting, that when a guy is clearly out, you don’t keep whacking him as hard as you can. I like seeing guys be able to not pull the trigger when the fighter is clearly out.

Any Arlovski glass jaw believers need to explain the Kos KO to me. No, don’t bother . . . let me explain it to you. The Kos KO shows that any clean shot to the chin is going to roll eyes to the back of head. The shot he took was nothing compared the shot Fedor delivered.

I’d argue the Kos fight was stopped to early. I don’t think he was robbed because he was dropped flat on his butt. I think it’s a tough spot for the ref. Only Big John consistently seems to figure out whether the guy will quickly recover or not.

After reading this article I think I’ve changed my mind on the whole quick stoppages. It makes sense now to stop after a flash knock out. As much as I like watching the sport, I would not wish serious brain damage on anyone, even the fighters I have a serious dislike for. I for one do not want my money contributing to people who are getting there heads knocked around for absolutely no reason other than the fact that I want a definitive decision. I think we can all live with a few fights stopped a little quicker than normal, and we probably should cut the refs some slack. After all, they are really in charge of someones life. To sit back in our armchairs and second guess a decision made in a split second when we ourselves can’t see everything that goes on in the ring is some what nonsensical. Besides, how often does this actually happen. I know this particular event wasn’t using refs that do it as much as we’re used too, but on North American soil, this might happen every other event.

Did anyone notice that this was the same ref (Marc Goddard) that was in the ring for the Dunham/Ecklund fight? He let Eklund take ?4? hits once he hit the floor in almost the same condition. On the broadcast this was aired after the Kos/Thiago fight, but it happened first.

I think one point that has not been made here as of yet is this. Yes the data from the article was based on boxing. But the some of if not more so of the people in the UFC are far harder strikers then boxers can only dream of. Add to the fact that the gloves used in boxing allow boxers to block and cushion the brunt of the blow, were as the gloves used in MMA are considerably smaller and offer little to no protection. In the Thiago Kos fight we see the ref making his way over to stop the fight, and I guess Thiago must have seen him coming. Only Thiago can say what he saw, the ref was making the right call, a second or two early maybe but the call was going to be made regardless. Even if Thiago had pounced, what would it have proven, plain and simple Kos got owned by the uppercut and lefthook. Everything else after that was unjustified.

I think 5 secs would have been all it took. I’m in the camp which says the Dunham-Eklund stoppage was perfect.

Koscheck should have been given 3 – 5 more secs to see if he could recover. I think that it may not matter so much in a fight like this. But if you’re talking about a title fight, or a loser gets cut fight…then these stoppages can really matter.

I don’t think the debate is as simple as “can more punches lead to brain damage”. The answer is undoubtedly yes, but fighters put themselves in the line of danger to win.

If you asked Muhammed Ali would he trade his Parkinson’s disease for not being the greatest boxer of all time, I think he would choose to remain the greatest boxer of all time.

There’s something a little different abotu people who choose to be professional fighters, especially those who make it to the top. I’ve hung out with some pro fighters and some of them are normal guys but the best guys are often a little bit obsessed. They put their life on the line to win fights and win titles and we should give them the benefit of the doubt.

3 -5 secs. Thats all i’m asking for.

It shows the vast majority of MMA fans, or at least the members of the BE community, have no desire to watch prone fighters get punched repeatedly in the head.

Did you see Thiago approaching him like an executioner with his arm ready to strike? Come on, he could have just taken his head off, but the man had mercy. I respect him from sparing Koscheck. This is in contrast to fighters who continue to hammer down on a clearly unconscious opponent.

Koscheck will live to fight another day.

And hopefully he’ll keep his hand up and his chin tucked in. Cut down on those predictable overhand rights. And take people down from time to time.

this whole debate no one ever brought up the fact that paulo has a blackbelt in bjj (a real one too, not an andy wang kind you get over the internet). everyone assumes that paulo either could have pounded kos out or that he couldn’t have. a stunned fighter is alot easier to sub than one who isn’t. think kos/fickett. paulo didn’t go for the kill b/c he could see it in koscheck’s eyes that he was through. the ref’s stoppage did not change the outcome of this fight, which really has been the whole argument about this debate.

I’ve been reading MMA blogs for some years now but have never commented on ANY articles.
BUT this article is SO relevant, well written and spot on that I had too:

GREAT article – let’s spread it all over the internet (Facebook, MySpace etc.) in order to educate people!

/Thomas

The rules state that a referee stops the fight when a fighter can no longer intellegently defend himself. Kos didn’t get a chance to defend himself becuase the fight was ended too early.

UFC 73: Nog Vs Herring , Big nog was put in the exact same situation with a fighter who actually rushed in to finish and the ref follewed the rules and made the correct call. Giving nog a chance to defend himself and go on to win the fight.

Unless you this the referee made a bad call at ufc 73 and let the fight go on too long. Becuase if you look at Kos and Nog these are the EXACT same situations.