Ref Stoppage; Sak v Shammy

Nippon Joho: Looking in the Cross Hairs:

"There are a lot of mixed feelings out there regarding the Ken Shamrock-Kazushi Sakuraba match.

...My first impression watching the show live was that the fight was stopped too early. Out of nowhere, Shamrock got rocked by a Sakuraba left punch, went down and as soon as Saku followed, the referee* jumped in to stop the fight. Seconds later we witnessed Shamrock jumping to both feet like nothing happened, visibly upset about the outcome.

Now I’m not an expert, nor do I want to provide the final answer about this match, but after watching the fight again and again there are some pieces of evidence I want to throw out there in case someone with more time can put this piece together.

Sakuraba landed a good, clean left to Shamrock’s face. This stumbled Shamrock back a little bit and, I guess due to the impact of the punch, Shamrock wasn’t able to regain his footing and as he fell he turned his back.

Here comes, in my opinion, the most important point on this fight: at the moment Shamrock fell he turned his back and as he did this his right arm landed over the ropes. Sakuraba rushed in with a couple of punches and the referee jumped in to end it.

I’m not the biggest fan of PRIDE referees, but this is a very difficult decision to make in just split seconds. From the referee’s point of view he most likely saw Shamrock fall and turn his back. At the moment Sakuraba rushed, Shamrock didn’t move or try to intelligently defend himself from the attack."