Unfortunately, we see more and more late stoppages in MMA competition. The reason behind those is twofold: first, the sheer number of MMA fights going on on any given weekend makes bad stoppages bound to happen; moreover, and although most MMA referees are well-trained professionals, once in a while they can make bad calls.

One of the worst stoppages in recent memory happened at Bellator 60 back in 2012. Pat Curran and Joe Warren were set to go at it for the Bellator Featherweight championship of the world. Then-champ Warren and then-contender Curran put on an exciting fight that ended 3 minutes and a half in the third round when Curran stopped Warren by KO with punches and knees.

The thing is, the bout should have been stopped way, way earlier.

The footage starts with Curran badly hurting Warren with a big knee to the face. Warren tried to weather the storm but Curran was just relentless. A barrage of punches floored Warren; the fight should have been stopped there, but it continued.

Warren somehow managed to get up but only met Curran’s strikes while on his feet. Warren was very obviously not defending himself intelligently yet the referee apparently hadn’t seen enough and let the fight go on. Virtually all of Curran’s strikes were landing, mind you. Warren continued to endure being battered with knees, uppercuts and overhand rights until the bout was finally stopped.

That is not what professional mixed martial arts should look like. The situation was pretty easy to analyze for the referee and he should have recognized that Warren was unable to intelligently defend himself as it was very obvious. Instead, he let Warren endure an outright beatdown that surely will have consequences for his health.

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Let’s hope that we won’t see another incident like this one in MMA anytime soon.