This can be said about Michal Oleksiejczuk after UFC 302: “He’s not going to give up easily, although that will probably work against him.”
The final bout before the co-main event at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, featured a bizarre first-round showdown between the Polish fighter and UFC veteran Kevin Holland, with Holland winning by submission.
Oleksiechuk landed a potentially game-changing blow that would take Holland down and give him a chance to finish the bout on the ground. He dove in, but his right hand was a little too close to Holland, who caught it and applied an armbar that he couldn’t escape.
Oleksiejczuk tried to break free, but Holland clamped his arm backwards in a chokehold, sending him falling to the mat. Anyone familiar with MMA knows how that ended, but Oleksiejczuk refused to tap, even after his arm was immobilized with an apparent dislocation or fracture.
Referee Herb Dean quickly stopped the bout, but Oleksiejczuk quickly protested, despite losing the use of his right arm. Video of the end of the bout can be seen here, but be warned it may not be for the faint of heart.
“He landed a good punch and somehow we went to the ground and his arm was a little bit too far inside. As they say, too far outside or too far inside,” Holland said after the fight.
“Just like a regular jiu-jitsu class, I tried not to push too hard, but I noticed he wasn’t going to tap, so I held him a few times. But overall, the Chihuahua kicked the pit bull out of the spot.”
In a shocking turn of events for mixed martial artists, Randy Brown, who won the opening bout on the main card, watched the fight with the press and urged Oleksiejczuk to tap out.
“Oh my God. Kevin Holland has an armbar on and it’s about to break. Just tap. Tap.”
Randy Brown reacts to Holland’s armbar #UFC302 😬 pic.twitter.com/fCzg7Ciu9K
— MMA Fighting (@MMAFighting) June 2, 2024
Oddly enough, this isn’t the first time a fighter has vented his anger at Dean, who stopped the bout in the first round because of a broken arm.
Twenty years ago at UFC 48, Dean stopped the heavyweight title fight between Frank Mir and Tim Sylvia after seeing Sylvia’s arm was clearly broken, and Sylvia repeatedly protested the decision even after the ringside doctor examined the arm and agreed with Dean’s decision.
Subsequent X-rays revealed that Sylvia’s arm was indeed badly broken, forcing her to take several months off work. Sylvia later admitted that she knew her arm was broken, and said Dean’s intervention saved her career.
We’ll see if Oleksiejczuk’s arm is similarly damaged and if he’s just as grateful: No one becomes an MMA referee to take on fighters like these.
