Michael Chandler arrived to Madison Square Garden riding a streak of four victories and looking for his second title defense. His opponent was Brent Primus, a dangerous fighter with an undefeated record of 7-0. The final title bout on Saturday 24th was for the lightweight title and in true New York MMA style ended in a bizarre form.
Both fighters started slow but looking to make some damage. The champion was the aggressor early on, forcing Primus to back away and avoid Chandler’s strikes. Trying to avoid a kick, Michael takes a step back and hurts his ankle. Primus notices and starts blasting kicks to take advantage of the situation.
Chandler tries to fight on but he can barely stand. Brent keeps kicking his injured leg and Chandler bites down his mouthpiece and invites him. Primus attacks and the champion is able to catch him with a power shot. The Michael knows this might be his only chance and decides to lunge forward but misses.
Then, in a bizarre turn of events that could only happen in New York, the referee decides to stop the fight and have a doctor look at Chandler’s injury. As everyone knows, except maybe referee Todd Anderson, a fight can’t be stopped to look at a fighter’s injury. To make things even more bizarre, the method they seemed to use to check if Chandler could continue was simply pull the stool away from him and see if he could avoid falling.
https://twitter.com/DiarioMma/status/878819712578183168
In this replay we can see the exact moment where Chandler injures himself.
El momento de la lesión de @MikeChandlerMMA. Una lástima, aún en una pierna se veía decidido a morir en la raya #BellatorNYC #BellatorxFOX pic.twitter.com/vpuWM6tnZ9
— Diario MMA (@DiarioMma) June 25, 2017
Brent Primus became the new lightweight champion at 2:22 of the first round due to a medical decision. The fight had potential to be an explosive bout, unfortunately it didn’t happen. The good news, however, is that Primus offered and immediate rematch to the former champion.
