Should the Holloway vs. Katter fight have been Stopped in the 4th Round? Dana White thought so…

In my honest opinion, when it comes to sports there is nothing like watching combat sports. Watching to highly skilled fighters test their mental and physical ability one man versus the other is the ultimate competition.

That being said, it is very violent in nature and not all can handle seeing that level of brutality carried out for 5 minutes let alone 5 rounds. Case in my point, my father loves boxing. He and I talk about boxing all the time, but when he comes over and he is asking if there is a fight on he always has to make it known that he is talking about boxing and not MMA.

I completely understand where he is coming from though. I mean, if you have never seen anyone get kicked in the head before it might be a little shocking, so much so that you decide that the sport just isn’t for you, but for those who do watch we have seen some pretty crazy things from broken limbs, split eyebrows, and some of combat sports most violent knockouts; It’s not because it doesn’t phase us, it’s because we compartmentalize. We know that these guys are fully prepared to in there and put it all on the line to come out victorious.

Sometimes you’ll be watching a fight and see a guy being choked out to the point where he blacks out. Some guys are that dedicated to never giving up, but right after that guy passes out who steps in? The ref that’s who.

The men standing in the octagon watching over the fights are there to make sure that this sport stays as safe as humanly possible despite what we may think as spectators. Some people say that it’s far too violent because of the striking; kicks to the head are by nature super violent, but when I fighter gets knocked out he’s done, that’s it. When fight looks like he’s in bad shape after some heavy punches the ref is supposed to stop those fights, and sometimes we as spectators think the fight may need stop a little soon much like Dana White did during the Holloway Katter fight.

Photo by Attentie Attentie on Unsplash

Dana White has seen a lot of MMA in his day and far be it from me to think that he wouldn’t have some expertise on this which is why I am always shocked to see when he thinks a fight should have been stopped.

Admittedly, I didn’t get around to watching the fight because I was watching football and doing other things, but when I read that article today I had to go see the fight and see what the fuss was about. Obviously I can’t see the whole fight, but from what I saw it was a fairly standard fight and I didn’t really see anything that would make me agree with Dana in this particular instance.

The fight start out and Max Holloway came out looking great. He was really putting it on Katter from start to finish and that’s not to say that Katter didn’t land some good shots throughout the fight, but you knew from start to finish whose ring that was and Max Holloway wasn’t going to let Katter forget it.

Katter gets bloodied up with a big elbows between the second and third rounds. He took a big head kick and was wabbly, but for the most part he didn’t seem like someone who was about to go down. Even though he got saved by the bell he seemed in good spirits. Definitely hurting and tired but for the most part he didn’t seem like he was finished taking that butt whooping.

The fourth round is where Dana thinks it should have been stopped and at some point he even talks to their corner and lets him know about it and that the plan is to take him straight to the hospital after the fight; he talks to no one or does nothing but ride the hospital and that’s exactly what they did.

Getting back to the fight, the 4th round looked back and the 5th round didn’t look any better and Max won via decision. That fight reminded me of the Forrest Griffin and Stephon Bonner fight. That was a brutal and bloody battle to the very end, but both men went the distance. After the fight Dana talked to him and overall he seemed okay. Dana isn’t a doctor, but that’s why he sent directly to one to make sure that Katter was okay.

I wasn’t surprised either. As violent as that fight was, I have seen way worse and way more questionable non-stoppages. Sometimes you’ll see a guy get dropped twice just before the round ends and he’s able to will himself back up before the bell sounds and as he does it’s the next round. If I am the ref I am stopping the fight. He got dropped twice ain’t not way he’s not getting knocked out as soon as they resume and often times that is exactly how it happens. Was that next round really needed?? Did he really have to get popped one more time for good measure? I don’t think so, but that’s why they have refs.

See when I was looking at the fight I think I saw it like Herb Dean did. This is so messed up, but he’s just hanging in there. He’s still defending himself especially in those later rounds. If you look at the striking totals Holloway threw almost 750 strikes in the fight. I am not saying his punches didn’t hurt or that he was gassed but I am at least 85% certain that in the 4th and 5th his punches weren’t nearly as hard as they were in the earlier rounds.

Obviously he looked more fresh than Katter but fighters have to put on a show. He couldn’t let Katter know how much he had left in the tank or that could have given Katter the will to pull off some crazy upset knockout victory. It does happen. These guys go on autopilot, daze the dude and next thing you know they went from almost being finished to knocking out there opponent.

I think something else Herb Dean may have noticed that no one else did was that Holloway might not have been throwing some of those punches as hard as we thought. Sometimes fighters throw punches and kicks just to stay busy and keep their opponent at bay. Holloway is a smart fighter so I can image that when he realized that he was going to finish Katter that he should slow down and not gas himself out.

I am not a professional at this stuff and people will disagree but at the end of the day these mixed martial artists go out there ready to put it all on the line for glory. They know their bodies; I have seen guys throw in the towel after a round because they know they will get hurt if they go back out again and the refs, I think, do as good a job as humanly possible and no matter the circumstance is in these situations there will always be someone who thinks the fight should or shouldn’t have been stopped early.