Dan Hardy questions Cedric Doumbe’s focus after bizarre splinter loss

Dan Hardy wonders if Cédric Doumbé‘s splinter may have divided fan opinion on the popular PFL fighter.

Doumbé suffered the first loss of his MMA career this past March, when it was ruled that he could not continue after he complained of what appeared to be a small piece of debris lodged in his foot. The French kickboxing star’s opponent Baysangur Chamsoudinov was officially awarded a TKO win, much to the displeasure of a packed house in Paris.

Hardy, a PFL commentator and the head of fighter operations for the league’s Europe branch, spoke about the strange finish on The MMA Hour, and he questioned whether Doumbé could have fought through the pain.

“It’s a very complex circumstance,” Hardy said. “There are certain things that can’t be discussed and I don’t want to be the person that’s discussing those live on air. What I will say is that Cédric was checked backstage. We weren’t doing checks cageside. This was a decision of the local commission. I didn’t like it. I don’t want people getting in the cage without being checked cageside and it’s something that I’m pushing to get changed. But Cédric walked out with bare feet. That floor was not suitable to be walking around with bare feet. He was walking through where the public was walking with shoes and stuff.

“But at the same time, I had a splinter in my toe while we were sparring. Actually, I laughed, I said, ‘I’ve Doumbé’d myself,’ and we just carried on the session. It’s a splinter. I relocated my thumb when I fought Anthony Johnson because I dislocated it. I feel like to be tuned in to a pain that must be so minimal like that, you’re not entirely focused on the fight, and I wonder where else his head was. Because you’ve got to be present when you’re fighting someone like ‘Baki.’ It’s a sold-out arena, everyone was there to watch that fight, it was a very high-stakes fight. I would have fought through anything to stay in there. Anything.

“You could have snapped both of my arms before the first round, I would have still tried to kick you in the head. This was the point I made at the press conference. We’ve seen fighters standing, doing interviews with Joe Rogan with dislocated toes. Like, Jon Jones had his toe relocated during the interview. I don’t know.”

Following the incident, Doumbé expressed his displeasure at referee Marc Goddard’s handling of the situation, stating that “I don’t like guy anymore” and that he would request a change in officials if Goddard is assigned to one of his bouts in the future.

Hardy acknowledged the difficulty of refereeing such a unique occurrence, which saw Doumbé call his own stop to the action to point out his injury to Goddard. The bout was waved off when Goddard determined that Doumbé was no longer engaging with Chamsoudinov.

“It was a very frustrating and disappointing situation,” Hardy said. “I’ve spoken to everybody involved, including all the officials. I feel like there was a bit of a breakdown in communication, absolutely. I feel like it could have been stated better that you can’t call a halt to the fight. I’ve had that conversation with Marc. The other thing as well, Marc is — in my mind, he is the best referee in the game. It’s a very difficult job, but at the same time, as a referee, you have to make sure that you’re protecting yourself because he came out of that and got a lot of heat for it, which I don’t think he was deserving of.

“He had a fighter that turned to him two or three times and expressed the pain, and as an official, if you’re going by the rulebook, you tell me that you’re in pain, I have to call a stop to the fight. It was disappointing because we all wanted to see a culmination, but I don’t think we would have had a conclusion after three rounds anyway. I felt like that needed five rounds. It needed a rematch. I still want to see the rematch now.”

Doumbé’s next fight takes place on May 17 in France at a Bellator Champions Series event, where he takes on 21-fight veteran Jaleel Willis. In Hardy’s eyes, Doumbé needs an impressive performance to regain his hype and set up what could be a buzz-worthy close to his 2024 campaign.

“That’s going to be a really interesting fight for him, because Jaleel, he’s a longtime veteran of the game,” Hardy said. “What is he, 16-5? He has a lot decisions where he’s able to control and drown people out, and that’s going to be a real tough test for Doumbé, someone that’s got that much experience in MMA. But I feel like this is going to be lingering in the back of his head and the back of some of the fans’ heads — that ‘Baki’ rematch needs to happen.”

“I think it makes sense to put it on again,” Hardy continued. “I think we can go into a much, much bigger arena with it as well. Doumbé’s a special star. … There is something very special about Cédric Doumbé. I think he lost a little momentum in that, but I think he can get it back on May 17 at Bellator. There are also lots of other conversations around who Doumbé is going to be fighting before the end of the year and lots of familiar names are being thrown around, so I think they’re planning on stepping him up very, very quickly if he’s successful on May 17.”