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16th Jan 2017

UFC fighter’s cup breaks just 20 seconds into fight causing commentators to crack up

The shorts came off

Ben Kiely

No one enjoyed seeing Tony Martin have to deal with a broken cup more than Daniel Cormier.

The UFC light heavyweight king was in the commentary booth during Tony Martin’s fight against Alex White on the UFC Phoenix preliminary card and boy did he have fun during the first minute of the fight.

White had Martin locked in a clinch against the fence in the first minute and was working away with knees and strikes when the fight was brought to a sudden halt. Martin informed the referee that his cup had broken, and the ref gave him some time to go back to his corner and get it fixed while Cormier and his co-commentator Jon Anik gave a play-by-play of the bizarre moment.

Daniel Cormier:

“Hehe… his cup broke! He just said his cup broke.”

Jon Anik:

“So Tony Martin dealing with a broken cup. You gotta back-up? How does that work?”

DC:

“You know, they tell us to bring two mouth guards. I don’t know what the protocol is for this situation here.”

When Martin reached his corner, he was forced to drop his shorts in order to remove the faulty cup and see if it could be fixed. This sparked cheers, cat-calls and wolf whistles from the crowd as well as some girlish giggles from Cormier.

JA:

“You’ve gotta think somebody has an extra cup. We’ll see how this plays out. Just when you thought you’ve seen everything.”

DC:

“Hahaha! We’ve been around the game for a long time. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything like this.”

 

Eventually the situation was fixed and the fight continued. Martin went on to grind out a unanimous decision victory over White (30-27, 30-27, 30-27). The result saw him score consecutive UFC wins for the first time in his career, while White is 1-3 in his last four with his last win coming over Artem Lobov at UFC Fight Night 82.

JA:

“So an equipment malfunction. They’re giving Tony Martin some time to get things right. Good job by the referee.”

DC:

“They just took the string out. A lot of those cups have a tie in the back, so they too the string out and they just kind of put them in the briefs.”

Cormier wasn’t the only one to find humour in Martin’s misfortune. The good people of Twitter who were tuning in also saw the funny side of the odd moment.

https://twitter.com/illiter8too/status/820801083475894275