Cédric Doumbé’s PFL debut may have been postponed, but now he gets the opportunity to headline an event in his home country.
The promotion announced on Thursday that Doumbé will compete in the main event during the PFL Europe Playoffs on Sept. 30 at Zenith Paris La Villette in Paris, France. Doumbé’s opponent has yet to be announced for what is being promoted as “a special showcase bout.”
The event will also feature the light heavyweight, women’s flyweight, bantamweight and lightweight semi-final bouts of the inaugural PFL Europe season, with the champions of each division winning $100,000 and a spot in next year’s PFL regular season.
Doumbé was slated to make his PFL debut at PFL 6 this past month but was forced to withdraw from the bout, and the welterweight regular season, with an injury. The former GLORY champion is 4-0 in his pro MMA career, finishing all four of his opponents within two rounds.
3/7
Cedric Doumbe still doesn’t understand what happened this past Thursday.
Doumbe faced Baissangour Chamsoudinov, also known as “Baki,” in the main event of PFL Europe 1. After a competitive first two rounds, referee Marc Goddard called a stop to the bout in the third, after a bizarre sequence prompted by a splinter in Doumbe’s foot. Doumbe immediately protested the stoppage, but Goddard wasn’t hearing it, declaring a TKO victory for Baki, due to Doumbe’s injury.
Speaking with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour, Doumbe explained what happened that evening from his perspective, and questioned Goddard’s handling of the situation.
“At first, if you see the footage, I tried to remove [the splinter] by myself with the other foot,” Doumbe said. “It didn’t work, so then I raised my hand, talked to the referee and said, ‘I have something under my foot’ because I didn’t know how to say splinter. He said, ‘Don’t stop, don’t stop. Keep going. Fight.’ Then I was like, OK, he doesn’t want to understand. He doesn’t even want to listen. So I kept going. I got back into the fighting stance.
“Then I was looking in Baki’s eyes and I was like, OK, I can remove it by myself, but I don’t want him to kick me in the head. But I know he’s not that type of guy. So I look at him and he saw there was something wrong with my foot, and was like, ‘What’s wrong?’ I said, ‘I have a splinter’ in French, ‘under my foot. It is annoying.’ ‘Just remove it!’ And then he talked to the referee, said something like, ‘Let him remove the thing.’ Then I stopped also, looking at the referee, and then he stopped the fight.
“I was shocked. ‘What the hell? What the hell is happening?’ Then the referee said, ‘You cannot stop the fight.’ I said, ‘Yes, I know, but I didn’t stop the fight!’ Then after everything, we’re cool. I was cool, I was relaxed. I said, ‘Marc, can I talk? … You told me I cannot stop the fight. I said yes. That’s the rules. I kept going, I kept fighting. But the second time I didn’t stop the fight. Baki talked to you and then you stopped me.’ Then he said, ‘No! You cannot stop the fight!’ He didn’t want to listen to me. I was very sad, because we trained three months, my team and me we did a lot of marketing about that fight, it was sold out, everybody was proud, everybody was waiting for that fight, and Marc Goddard just stole the fight. I really don’t understand.”
https://www.mmanews.com/news/cédric-doumbé-bemoans-marc-goddard-splinter-pfl-europe
Cédric Doumbé Bemoans Referee’s Actions After Splinter Led To Stoppage In PFL Paris Main Event: ‘Marc Goddard Stole The Fight!’
Doumbé remains puzzled by Goddard’s actions.
Cry some more Cédric
