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Coach: Saint-Denis ‘told me that I was right not to throw in the towel’

The UFC 267 preliminary bout between Elizeu Zaleski and Benoit Saint-Denis reignited MMA’s perennial controversy about corner stoppages and how much punishment a fighter should be expected to take in an MMA bout.

The fight saw Saint-Denis and Zaleski pretty evenly matched for the first round and a half but things changed mid-way through the second round. Zaleski caught Saint-Denis and really opened up on him but Saint-Denis never dropped and Ref Vyacheslav Kiselev refused to stop the bout.

The UFC commentators, especially Daniel Cormier were screaming for someone to stop the bout, but alas, no one did and the beating continued into the third.