Cedric Doumbe Shares His Side of Bizarre Loss Against Baissangour Chamsoudinov

When the decorated kickboxer complained about an issue with his foot in the third round of his PFL Europe main event bout, referee Marc Goddard asked him to continue. Doumbe was addressing the issue a second time, this time to his opponent, when Goddard called a stop to the contest, declaring Chamsoudinov the winner via injury stoppage.

Sharing his side of things, Doumbe revealed that there was a splinter in his foot during the fight. The Frenchman was initially unable to explain the issue to Goddard, as he wasn't aware of the English term for the word “splinter.” Doumbe then made eye contact with his fellow French opponent, who could see his discomfort. When Doumbe told Chamsoudinov about the splinter, “Baki” explained it to Goddard but it was already too late.

“At first, if you see the footage, I tried to remove it by myself with the other foot. It didn’t work,” “The MMA Hour”. “So then I raised my hand, I talked to the referee, I said ‘I have something under my foot.’ As I didn’t know how to say ‘splinter,’ I said I have something under my foot. He said ‘Don’t stop, keep going.’ Then I was like, ‘Okay, he doesn’t want to understand, he doesn’t even want to listen’, so I kept going.

“And then I was looking into ‘Baki’s eyes, I was like, ‘Okay I can remove it by myself but I don’t want him to kick me in the head.’ But I know he is not that type of guy. So I look at him and he saw there is something wrong with my foot. He told like, ‘What’s wrong?’ I said, ‘I have a splinter, it's annoying, you know’ in French. He said, ‘Just remove it.’ And then he talked to the referee, he said, ‘Let him remove the thing.’ And then I stopped also looking at the referee and then he stopped the fight.”

Doumbe, in his defense, claims to have not stopped the fight the second time. The French star blames Goddard for robbing him, a sold out Accor Arena in Paris and world fans of a fight that took months of build-up and preparation.

“And then I was shocked,” he said. “I was like, ‘What the hell is happening?’ And the referee is saying, ‘You cannot stop the fight.’ I said, ‘Yes I know, but I didn’t stop the fight.’ I was cool you know, I was relaxed. I said, ‘Marc can I say something?’ He said, ‘Yes.’[I said,] ‘You told me I cannot stop the fight, I said yes that’s the rule. I kept going, I kept fighting. But the second time I didn’t stop the fight. I came [to] talk to you and then you stopped me.’ And then he said, ‘No you cannot stop the fight.’ He didn’t wanna listen to me. I was very sad because we trained three months, my team and me we did a lot of marketing around that fight. That was sold out, the crowd, even the world fans everybody was waiting for that fight. And Marc Goddard just stole the fight you know.”

With a combat sports career spanning over nearly a decade, Doumbe is no stranger to fighting with injuries. While he understands that injury stoppages are fairly common, he believes a splinter getting inside his foot was an anomaly that should have been dealt with accordingly.

“To be a referee, to be judge, that’s very very complicated. So I understand that. But you have to listen to me. I have fought with two broken ribs, even actually I’m fighting with my wrist broken," said Doumbe. "But I’m fighting, I’m training, so I’m not like a little girl, I can fight, I’m a man. But a splinter is something outside the fight you know.”

Both Doumbe and Chamsoudinov have expressed interest in a rematch down the road.

Reference: https://www.sherdog.com/news/news/Cedric-Doumbe-Shares-His-Side-of-Bizarre-Loss-Against-Baissangour-Chamsoudinov-192934