There was a bit of controversy at the end of tonight’s UFC 224 card during the main event fight between Raquel Pennington and Amanda Nunes. In the fourth round of the fight, Pennington, who was struggling after she had her nose broken by Nunes in the early rounds, asked to quit because she felt she was “done” but her coach went on to convince her to fight for one more round.
Pennington did indeed return to the cage to fight for another few minutes before Nunes beat her to a bloody pulp in the cage.
Pennington’s team went on to get criticized by nearly everyone twitter for their actions that put their fighter in harm’s way when she clearly didn’t want to fight anymore.
Raquel Pennington's corner should be ashamed of themselves. There was no need for Pennington to even get off the stool and start the 5th round to begin with when she clearly told her team she was done. #UFC224
— Chamatkar Sandhu (@SandhuMMA) May 13, 2018
This is incredibly uncomfortable to watch. “We’ll recover later”? What? And throughout this no technical advice is shared. Just a pep talk and a refusal to listen to their fighter. Pennington, who is the epitome of a fighter, deserves better than this. https://t.co/WONNOWHWzN
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) May 13, 2018
That pretty much goes against everything a corner is supposed to do for a fighter. https://t.co/tx9ca5IACh
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) May 13, 2018
https://twitter.com/davedoylemma/status/995526619463794688
Pennington’s team should ashamed, there was no reason for her to go out there and get beat up for another minute.