Issue 076

June 2011

When two-time UFC veteran Steve Lopez accepted a short-notice match-up with fellow Octagon cast-off Fabricio Camoes at February’s Tachi Palace Fights 8 event in California, he did so with one goal in mind: making it back to the big show, writes John Morgan, the 2009 MMA Journalist of the Year.

But in the opening minute of the match-up, 185lb’er Lopez caught a right high-kick to the temple and was flat on his back. While replays show Lopez gathered his wits quickly and appeared to turn and roll while defending Camoes’ four follow-up punches, referee Marcos Rosales halted the action just 23 seconds after it began. Lopez – suddenly 12-4 – vehemently protested the stoppage, but it was too late. Months of intense training, not to mention weeks of focused dieting and mental preparation, were over in a flash. 

While the safety of the sport’s athletes is the primary concern of all regulating bodies, is it possible we’ve gone too far? 

“I think there’s an assumption of risk that’s inherent in all fights,” Lopez’s manager, Ken Pavia says. “Fighters go into the fight expecting to take damage. They’re of that mindset. They all think they’re going to win but, in the process of winning, they know they can take damage. 

“When a guy goes to the gym twice a day for two months and trains for two hours each session, deprives himself of all the pleasures of life and deprives himself of food and puts so much time and effort into that, to have that taken away on a quick referee stoppage is criminal.”

Lopez (who lost to Dan Miller and Waylon Lowe during his UFC stint) insists he never lost consciousness during the attack – a factor which he had specifically instructed Rosales to implement. “I tell every referee before I fight that if I get clipped, make sure that I’m completely out,” Lopez says. “I tell every referee that. I just want to let the referee know that I accept the consequences of them not stopping it early.

“I definitely remember getting kicked. But I get hit pretty hard on a daily basis in practice. When I fell back, I remember looking up at Fabricio. I was definitely fully aware, and I started dodging punches. The referee jumped in to stop it, but I never got hit on the ground.”

Lopez accepted the fight with Camoes as a means to an end. With a win, he hoped to position himself for a return to the sport’s biggest stage. But in a mere 23 seconds, his tentative schedule was greatly delayed.

“Steve took a fight on relatively short notice and for less than he normally would get paid because of the opportunity,” Pavia explained. “He wasn’t fighting for the money. The reason why he was taking it was to advance his career and to try and get back to a major show. Realistically, given his track record, he was Camoes and another decent win away from being anywhere he wanted to be, be it Bellator, Strikeforce or even the UFC. To have a fight stopped that quickly sets him back realistically nine months to a year and a half, in terms of achieving his ultimate goal.”

In January UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar showed the world what a second chance can mean in an important fight by surviving a handful of knockdowns before coming back to salvage a draw against top challenger Gray Maynard. Lopez doesn’t understand why he didn’t receive the same consideration. “We’re the ones that sign the waiver. We’re the ones who are fighting. It’s our careers. We’re the ones that get in there.”

And it’s not that Lopez wants to risk his future well being for the sake of a win. “I feel that we do the proper medical testing,” Lopez says. “I had six different medical tests that I had to go through just to fight in California. I had almost $1,000 in medical testing just for this fight. That doesn’t include the MRI of my brain that I had for the UFC, which is another $1,500. I go through the medical testing to make sure I’m healthy.

“After fights, I won’t spar for six weeks. I grew up playing sports. I played football at a very competitive level from fifth grade to high school. I played all the positions where you get hit: running back, linebacker. I can’t even tell you how much worse getting hit in football is as compared to getting punched and kicked in an MMA fight. I’d go four or five days in a row coming home from football practice with a headache. I never have a headache after MMA practice.”

MMA’s safety record is truly incredible. For a combat sport to have seen but two fatalities since the beginning of regulation in 2000 is a testament to the focus on safety shared by the regulators of the sport. But with careers sometimes riding on a single result, do we owe it to the athletes in the cage to be completely certain they’re in jeopardy before waving off a bout – even at the risk of fighters occasionally taking one punch too many?

Lopez and Pavia think so.

“I know it’s easy for somebody outside of the ring to say that we should err on the side of caution, but I think the fighter should be given every benefit of the doubt because they have so much riding on every win or loss,” Pavia says. “They should be given an opportunity to make a comeback and win the fight.”