Kongo’s coach: Cheick was sick, bad back, sore shin, and not cheating
Taking nothing away from Travis Browne, he put on a great performance and made an impressive UFC debut. But I…
Taking nothing away from Travis Browne, he put on a great performance and made an impressive UFC debut. But I just wanted to address some of the things getting said [on the internet] about Kongo being a dirty fighter, Wolfslair Muay Thai coach Dave Jackson told Fighters Only today.
I’m not sure that’s (point deduction for grabbing shorts) right. My take on it is that it was something of a simple honest mistake. He looked to me like he was reaching between Browne’s legs looking to get a position for a high-crotch or something, but just coming away with a handful of shorts each time.”
“But I can’t argue with the referee’s decision to dock him a point; at the end of the day he got told to stop and he understands English.
The groin shot was definitely not deliberate. Its something that happens all the time in thai boxing with the low kicks, and its actually not something that’s ‘illegal’ in the sense that you wouldn’t be docked points for it. But at the same time, in Muay Thai using the knee on the inside of the thighs is not a scoring technique.”
At some point he either got shin-checked or caught Browne’s knee and he split his shin .. you can see a massive baseball-size knot on his shin, with a split down the middle. So that took his kick away from him; and his back was already in bits.”
“It’s hard to say all this, because people say ‘Oh you’re just making excuses’. We’re not, the fight was a draw, no problem, I am just letting a few things from behind the scenes out.”
Then, on top of all that, he was sick as a dog. Look at the weigh ins; he weighed in at 228lbs. When is Kongo ever that light? He actually walks around at 238lbs, well under the 265lb limit! He had a fever all week, the shits, everything. He lost ten pounds just like that. Absolute nightmare.
When we travelled to the arena, we were stuck in a little bus for two hours (all main card fighters arrived late for UFC 120 because of road closures) and he was in a state when he got off.”