The Sean Salmon Debate
By Brandt DeLorenzo on Sep 03, 2009
Earlier this week, fighter Sean Salmon posted up an entry to his blog on MMA Junkie. In this blog entry, he talked about some recent personal battles, drinking problems, and a predicament that he recently faced when being asked to fight for two promotions in a short period of time.
Now it’s June 3, and I am flying back to Columbus, Ohio, from Manchester, England, where I was training with Wolfslair helping some of the team’s fighters prepare for their upcoming bouts. The plan was to fly in on June 3, fight in Cleveland on the 6th and then fly back to England on the 7th.
I left England and was given a very serious warning: “If you get hurt in that fight, don’t bother coming back.” My opponent for the fight was 6-6, so obviously getting back to England to learn and train with some of the best was my priority.
Seeing how my opponent had just a 6-6 record, I figured I could easily bully him into rolling over for me, collect the easy win, and return to England. But it didn’t happen that way at all. Someone forgot to tell my opponent to roll over and quit.
Many fighters in smaller shows have faced the same quandary when fighting two shows in a relatively short amount of time. As many of us already realize, this isn’t baseball, where athletes can typically compete for up to four hours a day. Fighters can be sidelined for half of a year after being injured in a fight. So why take the risk of committing to fight twice in a short period of time?
Eddie Alvarez, fighting for a much larger promotion against Shinya Aoki, had to pull out of a local fight against Naoyuki Kotani that was set to happen only three weeks later. Alvarez admitted that he was injured when Aoki pulled out a heel hook submission and dropped out of his fight with Kotani. The big difference between Alvarez and Salmon is that Alvarez went from a big show, Dream, to a much smaller local show in Atlantic City. Obviously Alvarez would give it his all for the larger promotion and not risk taking a dive to make a few extra bucks on a later show. Or maybe Alvarez would have fought 100% even if the local fight was three weeks before his Dream bout with Aoki. But Salmon didn’t say that he took a dive, he actually said that he realized his opponent was tougher than expected and he simply gave up. Is this the same thing?
I handled him very easily for the entire first round. He was able to land one very good elbow to my temple. I am embarrassed to admit that my first thought was that, “If he cut me and I can’t go back to England, this is not worth it.” How in the world could I be in a fight and think that if I got cut, it is not worth the win?
In the second round, I took him down again. He went for an armbar, I defended it (only to prove to myself that he couldn’t get it), and then I put my arm back in to give him the win so that I could return to England, healthy. Just so you all know, that is the most embarrassing thing that I have ever admitted out loud.
Salmon did get what he deserved. Instead of giving 100%, he simply gave up. But can we consider ‘giving up’ to be the same thing as throwing a fight? One can be the result of exhaustion or pain while the other is usually the product of making money on the side from illegal betting. One is a criminal offense while the other is a common issue in this sport of fighting.
And what about the promoter in England? Was it fair to warn Salmon that if he was injured, to not bother returning at all? Surely Salmon was fighting two fights to make more money since being released from the UFC. Salmon admitted that he wanted to fight for both promotions and an injury would take money out of his pocket.
Now that Salmon is slated to fight on the upcoming Ring of Combat XXVI event against Rafael Sapo next week, some people are wondering if Salmon is going to show and fight or simply give up to avoid injury. Few fighters would ever admit that they gave up or threw a fight. Now that Salmon has publicly admitted that he gave up during a MMA fight, what’s going to happen to his MMA career?
Maybe we’ll find out on September 11th.
Comments (4)
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Interesting points Brandt, especially regarding the distinction between giving up and throwing the fight. Technically he did throw the fight because he allowed himself to lose, but it wasn’t with crimial intent.
I’d be interested to hear from the Wolfslair/England side. They may have had other reasons for telling him he couldn’t come back, or maybe they didn’t really tell him that at all?
I don’t think you read carefully enough. Salmon put his “arm back in to give him the win”. This wasn’t a conscious decision to end the fight when his position was untenable, it was a conscious decision to give his opponent the victory. There is no way to construe this as legal.
Also, it wasn’t a promoter in England, it was the trainer at Wolf’s Lair. Salmon had been paid to be a training partner for Bisping. If he was injured in the Cleveland fight, he would be unable to fulfill his obligation. The trainer was perfectly within his rights to set the condition.
Salmon is flat out wrong in this. He’s busy now backpedaling to the Ohio Commission. I wish him good luck with that. His sole defense seems to be a poor command of written English and a unwillingness to proofread his blog posts.
Actually, Bob, it was a conscious decision to stay healthy. I agree that what Salmon did was wrong, but I know that other fighters have given up long before they were done. Tim Sylvia against Big Nog, anyone? He’s smart enough to never admit that he was afraid of getting put to sleep in that guillotine, though.
Also, unless he intended to throw the fight before it began, he’s not guilty of a criminal offense. He’s guilty of not fighting in a MMA fight and probably should re-evaluate his decision to be a MMA fighter if he won’t commit to each and every bout.
I’m sorry, but no. Salmon put his arm back in, which is another way of saying it was out when he decided to end the fight. He was not in danger of injury or even of losing when he decided it was time to give up.
The problem isn’t that Salmon decided to accept a loss, it’s how he executed his decision. Fighters don’t have to go on in the face of certain injury, fighters quit from exhaustion (physical or mental) all the time, and that’s only reasonable. They simply stop fighting. Sometimes they step away, sometimes the referee halts the action. The difference here is Salmon acted with conscious intent to cause himself to lose. Had Salmon not put the arm back in, but simply stood up and announced he was done, there would be no controversy (at least not this one).