Javier Mendez gives his thoughts on Paul Craig vs Jamal Hill stoppage

Javier Mendez, head coach of the legendary gym the American Kickboxing Academy aka…AKA sat down with longtime friend and student Mike Swick for a chat today. Mendez has coached a stable of world beaters such as Khabib Nurmagomedov, Daniel Cormier, Luke Rockhold, and even Mike Swick himself. They reminisced and also looked to the future on this episode of Real Quick with Mike Swick Podcast.

Paul Craig with a picture perfect performance

Mendez and Swick got to talking about the recent fight between Paul Craig and Jamal Hill. Craig got to work fast, locking up an arm triangle that dislocated Hill’s arm. Craig even pointed this out to the ref, to put an end to the fight, with no response from the ref Craig took matters into his own hands in a literal sense and attacked with strikes from the bottom until the ref waved it off.

Jamal Hill discussed the stoppage with TMZ Sports, he did not blame referee Al Guinee for stepping in earlier:

“He gave me a chance to try to pull off something spectacular. If I was one of my guys, I would have wanted him to protect them. But it’s kind of hard to say that with me with the heart I have. Me, I wanted to try to get that knockout still.”

Javier Mendez give his thoughts on the stoppage

“That arm (Jamal Hill’s arm) was like a dummies arm….like it was just flopping everywhere. What the hells the matter with this guy….what the hell’s the matter with this guy…..what is he doing? What is he doing?”

Mendez was relived that the outcome had not been as bad as it could have been and the injury to the arm only looked bad.

“Thank God the guy’s arm (Hill’s)..Dana (White) said that it wasn’t broken. They just put it back in…it was pulled out of its socket, so that was kinda cool.”

The dissatisfaction with refereeing was also seen across the boxing world this weekend, as a corner threw in the towel to protect their injured fighter, only to have the ref throw the towel out of the ring.

It is really interesting to see the two perceptive from a fighter and from a coach. Mendez wants to see a ref in control, to stop the fight as soon as the fighter is danger and preventing further injury. Jamal Hill proposes the other side of the coin, he is thankful that the ref did not stop the fight and gifted him one of a fighters most valuable assets….time.

We also saw this in the UFC 263 co-main, where Nate Diaz squared off against Leon Edwards. Diaz could have come back from utter domination in the last ten seconds had he been afforded more time. Obviously, the structure of bouts cannot be changed on a whim, but its still food for thought.

What did you thing of the Paul Craig vs Jamal Hill stoppage?

Let us know.