UFC: Andre Soukhamthath responds to UFC 222 criticism

It’s fair to say that UFC 222 had its fair share of exciting moments. However, it also possessed a lot rather weird incidents. One such incident occurred in the main fight card of the event during the bantamweight bout between highly rated prospect ‘Sugar’ Sean O’Malley and Andre Soukhamthath. In the third and final round of their fight, O’Malley looked to have badly injured his right leg, the injury was so bad that ‘Sugar’ wasn’t even able to properly stand on his leg and was constantly hopping on one leg. However, instead of using this to his advantage, Andre instead took his opponent down and unwittingly tried to finish him on the ground. He has since been at the receiving end of a lot of criticism. However, “The Asian Sensation” has now come out and responded to all the criticism.

Soukhamthath has a MMA record of 12-6 and a UFC record of 1-3. All of his career losses have been via judges’ decision. On the other hand, O’Malley is a top prospect who is still undefeated in his MMA career with a record of 10-0.

‘Sugar’ O’Malley dominated the first two rounds of their fight with relative ease. He kept his distance and constantly slammed him with a repertoire of kicks and punches. “The Asian Sensation” also got dropped by a big punch at the end of the second round and was continuously dominated by Sean. After O’Malley hurt his leg in the third round, Soukhamthath unwittingly took him down and tried to finish him. However, his efforts were in a vain and ‘Sugar’ won the fight via unanimous decision.

“The Asian Sensation” has been at the receiving end of a lot criticism from both fans and pundits alike. He was even criticised by the UFC President Dana White. However, Soukhamthath has now responded to all the criticism and given out a statement on the UFC 222 debacle in an interview given to ESPN. He revealed that he was dazed for the rest of his fight after getting knocked-down and claimed that he had no idea why he decided to take him down. Here’s what he had to say:

“I’m getting trolled right now by so many people, they are calling me the dumbest fighter in MMA. The dumbest fighter in UFC history. Even my friend Rashad [Evans]. Everyone is wondering why I decided to wrestle, and I’m wondering the same thing.
After he rocked me, I still stayed in the fight, but I was kind of dizzy and dazed afterwards,That shot really threw me off the rest of the game plan in the fight. I really wasn’t there.
I think I was just fighting with instincts. I definitely regret it, because I’m a striker first and a wrestler second. If I would have just done my thing out there, I easily would have won the fight.
I know what I did wrong. I realise what I did. I’m going to capitalise on my mistakes and learn from this. I’m not going to let opinions of others get in the way of my life. I’ve been through this before, and I’m not going to let it bring me down.”