Eight Fighters Suspended During Last Week's Event

Eight of the 20 fighters who participated in Smash, last Friday's mixed martial arts event at the Patriot Center, received medical suspensions following their fights. Four of the eight received indefinite suspensions from Virginia's boxing and wrestling sanctioning body, meaning they cannot fight until they provide positive medical reports to the licensing commission.

The other four suspensions were for 30 days, an automatic measure in Virginia after a technical knockout, forcing fighters to recover before competing again.

After Todd Guimond's bout, David Holland, Virginia's executive director for the boxing and wrestling commission body for the past eight years, went into the locker room to check Guimond's left eye.

"Looking at him, it kind of bothered me a little bit," Holland said. "His face was swollen pretty bad. It scares me, I'll be honest with you. We've been doing professional MMA for a couple years and the injuries that we had last Friday, that was a lot worse injuries than we've ever seen at our pro fights before."

The four fighters were suspended indefinitely for the following reasons: Guimond is required to have X-rays taken of his face and left orbital bone. Phillip Wyman is required to get an X-ray and CAT scan of his nose. Adam Lehman required stitches for a cut on his face. Kyle Baker passed out after being submitted by a rear-naked choke.

Jackie Kallen, president of Ice Promotions, who joined with Jimmy Lange Promotions to put on Smash, said the number of injuries was "about right." Smash was Kallen's sixth mixed martial arts show. She previously had put on five in California, where mixed martial arts has been popular for a longer period of time than in Virginia.

"I think it can be determined by the quality of fighters," Kallen said. "You bring in the local fighters and might see more stoppages [knockouts or TKOs]. I think because they're still learning, they're not the most experienced fighters and they don't know how to defend things and the quicker they might get hurt or knocked out."

Scott Howard, a local promoter and instructor at FightWorks in Sterling who was a judge at the fight, said there were more suspensions than usual for a 10-fight card, but that it wasn't more bloody than usual. He felt the ring doctors, Richard Peoples and Greg Pleasants, were too cautious in some instances, such as in Baker's bout, meaning more suspensions were given than needed.

"The guy was blood-choked," said Howard, meaning the blood running through the carotid arteries to the brain was temporarily cut off, resulting in Baker passing out. "The doctor said he had to see a neurologist. There was no trauma. You get choked out and you can fight the next day."

-- Ryan Mink