Corey Anderson isn’t necessarily questioning Luke Rockhold’s toughness, but he knows from personal experience what it’s like to battle through a few broken teeth in a fight.
At BKFC 41, Rockhold alerted the referee to the damage done to his mouth during his bare-knuckle boxing match with Mike Perry, which caused the bout to be stopped. Afterward, Rockhold revealed some badly busted teeth along with a nasty gash on his lip that required medical attention.
On Tuesday, Anderson posted a gruesome photo from a 2015 encounter with Gian Villante that saw him suffer a similar fate, with several of the Bellator contender’s teeth getting dislodged during an early exchange. Anderson said he did everything possible not to stop the fight while basically holding his teeth in his mouth with his tongue, in hopes that he’d be able to turn things around before the referee noticed the grisly damage.
“I keep seeing posts and hearing about [how] Luke Rockhold quit in the first round after getting a chipped tooth and a [hole] in his lip,” Anderson wrote on Instagram. “I had my bottom row of teeth crushed out in the first minute of my fight with Gian Villante. And fought all the way [until] I got knocked out with 45 seconds left in the fight. And fought the whole time holding my teeth in with my tongue so the ref wouldn’t call the doctor in between rounds and stop the fight. While still talking to my coaches between rounds trying to figure out how to win.
“[As] far as I was concerned the teeth were done for [but] the fight was still to be won!”
While the result for Anderson was still a knockout loss on his record, “Overtime” refused to stop his fight and instead exhausted every last option. And he couldn’t help but think of the situation after seeing Rockhold stop the fight against Perry this past weekend.
“I ain’t bragging or boasting, but everybody ain’t cut for this sport,” Anderson wrote. “Everybody swears to be a warrior when it’s sunshine and rainbows. But turn to quitters when it gets rough and wild! It’s easy to be good for some…. ITS HARD TO BE TOUGH FOR MOST!”
