BRISBANE, Australia – Neil Magny and UFC executive Tom Wright agree Saturday night’s UFC Fight Night 85 co-headlining win over Hector Lombard should have been stopped sooner.
“As much as we’re in the sport to win, it’s hard as an individual to put that kind of damage on a guy and not have it stopped,” Magny told MMAjunkie after Saturday’s FOX Sports 1-televised event at Brisbane Entertainment Centre in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. “The ref is supposed to be there to protect the fighter, and he wasn’t in a position to protect himself at all, and the ref should have stepped in earlier, I thought.”
Wright, the UFC’s managing director for operations in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, echoed Magny’s position that the referee, Steve Perceval, neglected to do his primary job when he failed to wave off the bout after Magny (18-4 MMA, 11-3 UFC) landed dozens of unanswered punches to a grounded Lombard (34-5-1 MMA, 3-3 UFC) in the second round.
“We were a lot concerned,” Wright said. “I think Neil said it best: It’s the referee’s job to make sure the fight is stopped if the athlete can’t protect himself or herself. And I’m sitting not quite as close as the referee was, but I thought that fight should have been stopped, and it should have been stopped a long time before.”
The UFC Fight Night 85 co-headliner took a wild swing in momentum after Lombard nearly stopped – and quite possibly should have stopped – a hurt Magny in the first round.
Magny admitted he was “definitely hurt” by Lombard’s early attack and had to think fast to keep himself from being finished.
“Once I got down to the mat, I was just finding a position to protect myself and find a way to get back to my feet and recover,” Magny said. “I thought I was doing so by trying to protect myself against the cage, but then I started getting shots to the back of the head, so I just had to switch it up and try something different, because that defense wasn’t working.”
Magny managed to survive and get back to his feet before the end of the first frame. He quickly capitalized on Lombard’s flagging energy and put together combinations that put the former Bellator champ on the defensive. Early in the second round, it was clear that Lombard had exhausted himself trying to finish the fight, while Magny was ready to put his grappling skills to use.
Lombard gave up a takedown and was mounted in the middle frame, at one point turning to his stomach and taking shot after shot to the side of his head. Although covering as best he could, Lombard did not appear to be intelligently defending himself well before the second round. Despite that, he survived to the end of the round.
By the third and final frame, however, Magny was clearly in the driver’s seat and quickly got mount, where he began raining down punches that finally prompted Perceval to intervene.
Now 10-1 with wins over Lombard, Kelvin Gastelum, Erick Silva and others, Magny, who tied the record for the most UFC wins in a calendar year with five in 2014, said he wants his recent triumph to open the path to a title shot.
“If I had my way, I’d wait for a title fight opponent, and make a title run before the year’s over,” he said.
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