Josh Thomson had a really bad evening when the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) went rolling through the United Center in Chicago, Illinois, on Sat., Jan. 25, 2014, with its UFC on Fox 10: "Henderson vs. Thomson" network television broadcast.
Not only did he lose a controversial split decision to Ben Henderson in the headlining attraction (see the Fight Metric report here), he also broke his thumb in the first round.
He explained as much at the post-fight press conference:
"(I broke my hand in the) first round, yeah. You can ask the commission guy. He was like 'hey', and I was like 'yeah, my hand's broken'. He asked if (he) should stop the fight, I was like 'no, get the hell out of here'. First round, I came back and I was like 'I think it's broken' and Bob told me to suck it up and get back out there. I guess fighters are like hockey players, we don't get carried off the ground because we have cramps. We're just going to keep fighting, that's what we're up here and do, that's what we get paid to do. I speak for everybody up here, I'm sure: broken hand, broken thumb, we've all fought through it and this is what we live for."
Despite the busted limb, "Punk" battled all the way to the final horn and seemed to have done enough with the healthy parts of his body to win a decision (watch the highlights of the fight here).
Alas, it was not to be.
It's not the first time this has happened; not even close. But it is the first time Thomson has lost a bout he felt he should have won, and this time the stakes were really high. Had he been awarded the decision, it's likely he would have gone on to fight Anthony Pettis for the title.
He continued by talking about his frustration with his injury and how it affected the fight and, in turn, future plans:
"It was really bugging me. Even when he locked his hands around my wrist... My corner was yelling at me 'fight the hands'; well, I can't grab anything. Every time I went to push down on his hands and fight his hands off to separate them, my thumb would just bend all the way back. It was just more irritating than anything just to know the things you need to do you can't do out there. You train this hard for this long through such a long camp and I see my title shots just fucking disappearing. I'm getting emotional right now, it's really irritating."
Then, the big revelation when a follow up question was asked regarding how he'll handle getting back on the grind:
"This might be it, man."
Emotions run high after a fight, and one would think that goes double when we're talking about professionals at this level with this much on the line.
Would you Maniacs be sad to see him go? And do you think he'll reconsider after some time away?
For everything you need on "Henderson vs. Thomson" click here, and for complete UFC on Fox 10 results and blow-by-blow coverage of all the night's action click here.