Hughes: "[Smith] had maybe a little to do with the stoppage."

Fighters.com’s fifth-ranked welterweight Matt Hughes (42-6) posted about last Saturday’s controversial stoppage of the EliteXC middleweight title bout between champion and sixth-ranked middleweight ”Ruthless” Robbie Lawler (15-4) and “Hands of Stone” Scott Smith (13-4) on his blog Monday:

“I know Scott had a hurt leg from throwing kicks and Scott started to look very frustrated.  I think Scott’s aches and pains and frustrations had maybe a little to do with the stoppage.  That’s just my opinion.”

Hughes trains Lawler and was cageside cornering his H.I.T. Squad student.

No one has been willing to state blatantly that Smith encouraged the controversial doctor stoppage Saturday night in Newark, outside of New York City, after he was poked in the right eye by Lawler’s thumb.

However, Hughes’s opinion bolsters New Jersey State Athletic Control Board Counsel Nick Lembo’s description to Fighters.com of events inside the cage immediately after the eye poke.

Lembo told Fighters.com Monday, “You can’t keep telling doctors you can’t see and your vision isn’t improving.  Fighters know what to say [if they want to keep fighting.]”

Both Hughes and Lembo intimate that Smith wanted to end the fight after breaking his foot when his kick was blocked by Lawler’s elbow.

Hughes also addressed the other controversial stoppage giving “Kimbo Slice” Kevin Ferguson (3-0) a third-round TKO “W” over “Colossus” James Thompson (14-9) in the main event.

Hughes posted, “I don’t know how fair the ref was in the fight.  Looks like Kimbo could have tapped out with the guillotine attempt and I don’t know how Thompson got stood up when he was cross sides throwing elbows.  It looks to me like there was maybe a little bit of favoritism.”

Slice’s trainer, MMA legend “El Guapo” Bas Rutten (28-4-1), posted his opinion on his blog about referee Dan Marigliotta’s decision not to stop the fight at the end of round two:

“People ask me if the fight should have been stopped at the end in the second round.  I say ”yes” because those are the rules.  It should have been stopped because Kimbo didn’t do anything to improve his situation.   But, I think what made the ref not do it was the fact that Kimbo was giving his thumbs up the whole time to let the referee know that he was OK.”

Rutten also addressed Marigliotta’s decision to finally stop the fight:

“[Slice] finished with hitting Thompson with a four punch combination with the last one of those being a hard right upper cut.  Thompson staggered back and the referee stopped the fight.  Was it too soon?  I thought it would be great to see a few more shots just so that he was down for real.  But I guess the referee had the two or three times that Thompson was hurt in the earlier rounds in his head, plus that he also got hit on his cauliflower ear that busted open and he had a different look in his eyes.”