Seth Daniels is one tough dude, and that is a fact. A couple of weeks ago, the Fight 2 Win CEO had surgery on his neck, then competed in his first judo match in over a decade just a week later. Last Saturday on the F2W stage, Daniels had a whole new obstacle to overcome: a broken hand.
Daniels incurred the injury just two days before his F2W 104 match with Jorge Perez, but opted not to back out. Instead, he went up there and not only competed, but submitted his opponent with a toe hold. Using his injured hand. Like we said: one tough dude.
Before Daniels landed his match-winning toehold, though, he tried to submit Perez with an “electric chair.” And to stop himself from getting submitted, Perez went for Daniels’ broken hand.
For some, the grab seemed purely defensive, with the hand being a necessary body part to remove in order to escape Daniels’ submission. For others, it seemed more like an attack: a deliberate attempt to hinder Daniels’ performance by hurting him even worse.
The moment brings up an interesting debate: if you’re going up against an opponent you know is injured, should you be deliberately attacking that injured body part? If you choose to do so, is it a jerk move or just a strategy?
Daniels, for his part, advocated for his opponent’s right to go for his broken hand… but said that he wouldn’t take that route himself.
“My take on it is that we are fighting in a combat sport. The goal is to get your opponent to submit or break them. If your opponent is injured and still chooses to compete you have every right to attack them in any way you deem fit. I personally would not attack my opponent’s injury — if I won that way, I wouldn’t feel good about it,” he says.
However, Daniels emphasizes that if his opponent takes the proverbial gloves off in a match, well, all bets are off. “I normally do not ever want to intend to injure my opponent. I do this to have fun. But when he grabbed on my hand, in my head I said, ‘Okay motherf*cker, that’s what we are doing — I’m gonna break your foot.’ Then snap, crackle, pop, b*tch.”
Take a look at the video from FloGrappling below and see what you think. What’s your opinion on deliberately going for an opponent’s injured body part in a match?
