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There are few hard, fast rules surrounding mixed martial arts. It’s one of the sport’s selling points. Notwithstanding a handful of stipulations—no eye-gouging; no hair-pulling; no kicking a downed opponent; no fish-hooking an open wound—it’s pretty much anything goes. Still, there are a few rules of thumb. Among them: if you’re asking your opponent, midfight, whether they really want to continue, odds are good you’re on your way to victory.
So it went for Alexander Volkanovski last Saturday night in Jacksonville. Headlining UFC 273, the 33-year-old Australian featherweight was administering such a brutal beatdown that he asked his opponent, South Korea’s Jung Chan-sung (a/k/a The Korean Zombie), if he wished to continue on. The Zombie did. But the referee, Herb Dean, thought otherwise, mercifully prying Volkanovski off his prey and waving off the fight early in the fourth round.
