Last night we told you about that pitiful stoppage that happened at EFC Africa 28 in which Christophe Walravens hit Bernado Mikixi an innumerable amount of times while the ref watched. Keep in mind this came just weeks before EFC Africa let a guy literally die in the cage at their previous event.
This morning former EFC Africa headliner Chris Bright contacted me and wanted to convey some more information about the atrocious nature of EFC.
Hi Zeus,I hope you’re well.
I’m an ex-EFC fighter who left them after event 3 because I could tell the way things were headed. They blackballed me in South Africa and made it impossible to fight elsewhere. I have had over a 10-year MMA career and a pro record of 27-3. I was the main event on EFC 1.Out of the EFC Africa mess my partner and I have started a show called Imagine FC. We hope to correct some of the fundamental issues over here. But as always raising their kind of funding has been slow.
EFC Africa’s safety record has been horrific. They already have a fighter from a previous show with some level of brain damage, who was in a coma for a period and now the Booto incident. What’s concerning for me is that Booto was apparently a very average amateur who actually failed his pro license twice. He had an average amateur record and to my knowledge was was 0-1 as a pro before being pitted against Keron Skinner who was a Johannesburg amateur champion with a record of something like 21-1 and holding 2 belts. So Booto was in essence a sacrificial lamb to build Keron up.
I understand there were paramedics present at the show but no ambulance. They actually had to call a doctor from the crowd to assist. It apparently took 6 hours to get Booto to a hospital.
Our sanctioning bodies are toothless as they don’t really have the power or know how to effect changes here. Despite charging for “sanctioning” there are no local ranking systems, no proper PED testing, no decent pro evaluation criteria. (Or none that is applied, as EFC seem to override whatever they want).
To my knowledge there is still no fund set up to gather donations for Booto.
And what’s more frightening is that there seems to be no process of inquiry from any body whatsoever into the background.Judging by last night and their general attitude and lack of proper understanding of MMA we will see more serious injuries. They don’t cut fighters on performance so you’ll find guys on 3 losses meeting a stud. So something bad was bound to happen.
There quite a lot of history there and with my personal history with the EFC it would be distasteful to challenge them on this. As it would only look as though I had ulterior motives.
The whole thing is very sad. Just wanted to let you know that from what I hear you aren’t on the wrong track.
Regards
Chris
Absolutely horrible stuff, and unfortunately there’s no true sanctioning body that can prevent stuff like this from happening.
