Lombard responds to disqualification
Hector Lombard: “I always say he didn’t want to fight. He didn’t want to continue. … We’re fighters. I’ve been in that situation before.”
Former Olympic judoka Hector Lombard entered the UFC from Bellator on a nearly unprecedented 24 wins without a loss. Then-Bellator boss Bjorn Rebney guaranteed he would win the middleweight belt. Lombard went 1-2 in the UFC, before dropping to welterweight, where he seemed to shine, beating Nate Marquardt and Jake Shields. At UFC 182 early in 2015 he got a win over Josh Burkman too, but that was changed to a No Contest after he tested positive for anabolic steroids.
When Lombard returned over a year later, he lost to Neil Magny and returned to middleweight. Then he lost to Dan Henderson, Johny Hendricks, and Anthony Smith. He desperately needed a win on Saturday night vs. C.B. Dollaway. Instead, he did this:
https://twitter.com/UFCONFOX/status/970104834291466241
Dolloway’s kick landed as the bell was sounding. Referee Mark Smith shouted time perfectly and then moved forward to break the fighters from a perhaps unfortunate distance. The southpaw Lombard countered with a lead right that might conceivably be forgivable and then threw a straight left that is not forgivable.
Lombard was rightly disqualified.
https://twitter.com/UFCONFOX/status/970106056926887937
If you are rightly disqualified in MMA, the correct thing to do is apologize. If you don’t apologize, if instead, you try to justify it, or worse question whether the opponent was actually hurt, it gives the appearance that you are a bad guy. That’s what Lombard did.
It was in action, said Lombard backstage, to Ben Fowlkes and Ken Hathaway for MMAjunkie. You know, we’re exchanging. He threw a kick, and I’m coming back. You’re in the fight. If the referee doesn’t get in and say [stop], but if you’re in action and you throw a kick, I follow through with one-two. … The referee didn’t step in and say anything.
I always say he didn’t want to fight. He didn’t want to continue. … We’re fighters. I’ve been in that situation before. You just get up. He was just talking and everything. [If] you want to continue the fight, you continue.
I would love to [have a rematch]. I know he won’t beat me, but it’s up to the UFC, up to him, whatever he wants to do. I want to get another fight quick.
Lombard juiced and was caught, then lost four fights in a row and was somehow offered yet another fight, and was disqualified for a flagrant rule violation, and then blamed the opponent and the referee. More likely than a rematch is a release from contract and return to Bellator, if they will have him.