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Doctor Strange
A wise man once said, “It is better to keep silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubts.” The cageside physician at UFC 294 must have missed the memo.
Not much more than a passing thought was given to the bantamweight prelim between Victor Henry and Javid Basharat on Oct. 21 at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. It was the sixth bout on a 13-fight card headlined by the rematch between current lightweight champion Islam Makhachev and reigning featherweight titleholder Alexander Volkanovski. Insiders viewed Henry as the sternest test to date for the undefeated Basharat.
A fairly pedestrian first five minutes gave way to an absolute s---show in the opening stages of Round 2. Basharat fired a kick south of the equator, and Henry collapsed to the canvas in visible distress. The Josh Barnett protégé writhed as the kind of pain every man knows and fears set in. In moseyed the cageside physician, now forever immortalized for his incompetence. With Henry doing his best to recover, the “doctor” informed him that he had not been struck in the groin despite replays and the fighter’s current state saying otherwise. “It was all dick and balls,” Henry told the physician, showing an inordinate amount of restraint while doing so. It soon became clear he could not continue, and the match was ruled a no contest. Henry later vomited backstage and had to be taken to a hospital for evaluation. Men rarely have their testicular fortitude questioned in such a public forum by someone who should know better.
The “doctor” was not done leaving his imprint on the event, as he advised what most viewed as a premature stoppage in a light heavyweight showcase between Johnny Walker and Magomed Ankalaev. Walker slammed home a few inside leg kicks but misfired on a flying knee. Ankalaev scrambled behind the Brazilian, briefly threatened the neck and hammered away with ground-and-pound. He then delivered an errant knee to the face of the still-down Walker. Once again, Doctor Strange entered the cage. He asked a few questions of Walker, who appeared lucid and focused on resuming his encounter with Ankalaev. Instead, the fight was waved off. Both men were visibly perturbed by the decision, so much so that they had to be restrained from tangling with one another in the immediate aftermath.
UFC CEO Dana White offered some damage control, perhaps out of pity.
“Listen, the guy’s inexperienced. He got up in there… I think there’s a lot of things that probably happened,” White said at the post-fight press conference. “I guess he asked [Walker], ‘Where are you right now?’ and his response was, ‘I’m in the desert.’ He’s not wrong. I think there’s a big language barrier in there between the two of them, and he’s inexperienced. It sucks. It’s one of those things that happens sometimes. We’ll make it right, and we’ll fix it.”
Those words offered little solace to the parties involved. Walker and Ankalaev are scheduled to rematch one another at UFC Fight Night 234 on Jan. 13 in Las Vegas. Until then, it will be difficult to shake the consternation associated with a night of utter incompetence from a man who was given far too much responsibility on the sport’s biggest stage.