Kablam! Right on the ear? Referee Tony Chiarantano seems in good position to catch this blatant elbow strike of Cletus "Hebrew Hammer" Seldin on ESPN2'S Friday Night Fights. The victim was Johnny Garcia, and this is back in February. The ref also gets some other elbow action he isn't particularly on the ball for. ESPN's commentator Teddy Atlas was surprised about this too. Seldin, a strong, undefeated light welterweight prospect, is certainly not a newcomer to working a guy with his elbows but here we can see a blatant, loaded-up strike. That is, opposed to very common elbow activity people complain about, incidental to head control, space-making, jockeying for positions, or incidentally touching your man up while blocking and deflecting with your elbows (Seldin does use a cross-arm defense, so that is bound to happen also).
This is just flatly, gratuitously dirty and should've had a point deduction, I would think. I might be wrong, but I don't even think Seldin was warned here, as though it were missed completely. It's a nice catch from the FNF crew on slow motion, regardless. I seem to recall in Seldin's first match with Bayan Jargal, Seldin looked to me, in the first round, to use his opponent's clinching as an opportunity to try a few such elbow strikes with his free arm. Seldin's a solid fighter, but you've got to watch him closely. His head and elbows are all prone to strike. This guy is a rough customer, for whatever mix of the incidental, accidental and intentional we might be seeing. I chalk this one up as clearly intentional. But things happen in fights. I buy that many fighters will blatantly (yes, even blatantly) foul on nothing more than instinct, instead of with the thought to gain unfair advantage. Sometimes, your natural reaction in a combat sport is to do any physical thing that you would do without rules and it's done without any decision-making whatsoever. Seldin might be particularly predisposed to that. I couldn't say. But it is up to the referee to force them into forethought if a pattern emerges with things like this and I did find it very odd that nothing came of this particular elbow, seemingly in plain view and blatant.
Work that bag,
Basement Gym Boxing
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