Josh Culibao is an Australian UFC featherweight, He has an MMA record consisting of 11 wins, 1 loss and 1 draw. He faced a tough opponent in Armenian Melsik Baghdasaryan during the preliminary card of UFC 284 in Perth. Despite the adversity he faced in the, Culibao managed to secure the win.
During the opening round, Culibao had to endure a headbutt and a painful strike that even had viewers cringing. However, the real pain came when Baghdasaryan drilled Culibao in the groin with a spinning back kick. Culibao tried to regain his composure and check if his manhood was still intact. Although the doctors allowed him to continue, the pain lingered for weeks.
Culibao spoke to SPORTbible about the agonizing moment, saying, “The amount of pain I was in, when you get hit there you feel sick in the guts, and you can’t quite rest.”
He further added, “It’s been one month…”
“And only last week I can shower without having to worry about the pressure of the showerhead being a bit tender down there. It was tender. I had an outline of the bruising of the cup. That’s how hard he kicked me there, that’s how bad it was.”
Despite facing serious adversity in the opening round, he managed to turn things around and secure a thrilling win in the end.
A while ago some MMA stats went viral. The stats shined a light on the fact that those who commit fouls often end up having the competitive edge because of it and end up winning. UFC has yet to crack down on eye pokes and groin strikes.
A long time ago, Joe Rogan proposed:
“There are certain things that the ref and I can’t see so when a guy gets kicked low they should review the tape,” Rogan said.
“Instantly. The ref should always review the tape. It should be a law and if the kick went low? One point. F**k it. One point for low kicks and one point for eye pokes. I guarantee you that s**t would decrease dramatically.”
The topic of UFC not improving the glove design has also been a feature not a bag. There have been criticism of the lack of curviture in the UFC glove as far back as 7 years ago but UFC refuses to license a superior glove from Trevor Wittman and is instead opting to prioritize financial gains.