Unfortunately what was turning out to be an interesting stand-up battle between Daron Cruickshank and KJ Noons ended prematurely early in the second round due to an eyepoke to ‘The Detroit Superstar’ that left him unable to continue, resulting in a ‘no contest’ ruling.
Round One:
Noons trying to take the center of the cage to start and throws a kick to the leg. Cruickshank quickly throws a kick of his own in return.
Spinning attack from Cruickshank lands, but Noons is ok. Cruickshank with a kick upstairs that lands to the face.
Cruickshank with a nice short flurry of strikes coming forward. Noons continuing to push forward regardless though, but then is stopped momentarily for an accidental eyepoke.
On the restart Noons connects with a big punch. Cruickshank working a spinning kick, but comes up short. He creates some distance with a push kick to the body. Cruickshank lands a takedown, but Noons is right back up again.
Noons coming up short with a lunging knee. Cruickshank with a leg kick. Noons moving in aggressively and gets countered with a punch in the process before Cruickshank swivels and moves away.
Nice hook lands for Noons. Body kick for Cruickshank. He tries to go upstairs, but it’s blocked. Leg kick for Cruickshank and they exchange hard punches in close.
Cruickshank with a takedown in the final seconds of the round and maintains the position until the horn.
Round Two:
Noons to the center of the cage again. He launches a flurry and unfortuantely then an eyepoke hurts Cruickshank. Big John McCarthy doesn’t see it at first, but then opts to stop the action when Cruickshank complains.
Cruickshank has a little blood coming from an eye, it doesn’t look good. McCarthy is giving Cruickshank as much time as he can to recover here but the doctor taking a look at the eye and there’s a chance this could be stopped.
Cruickshank admits he can’t see out of the eye and that’s it, the ref is left with no choice but to call an end to the fight. What a disappointing end to this encounter less than a minute into the second round.
It’s never nice to see this kind of injury and so let’s hope Cruickshank’s eye isn’t too badly damaged.
