People may have questioned the end to tonight’s co-main event of the UFC on Fuel TV 8.  Mark Hunt knocked Stefan Struve down in the third round and walked away apparently thinking the “Skyscraper” was out cold, but Herb Dean told him to keep going.  Then, after Hunt approached to continue, the referee waved off the fight.  At first glance, it appeared that Herb Dean ruled that Struve could not defend himself.  The commentators said this was the case as well.

As it turns out, Hunt’s vicious punching broke Struve’s jaw.  As John Morgan of MMAJunkie.com reported via Twitter, “Struve [told] Dean his jaw is broken,” and later, “Dean was telling them to fight on, and Struve told him no more.  That punch apparently broke his jaw.”  He confirmed this with a third tweet, “Struve told me again as he walked past press row that his jaw is broken.  If it wasn’t clear, Dean was telling them to continue before that.”

Struve himself went to Twitter and stated, “Thanks for the support everybody, I wanted Herb to take the tooth out of my cheek and continue but then it turned out my jaw was broken,” and then later, “45 minutes to the hospital without painkillers.. Man, please choke me out.. Jaw is hurting like crazy.. “

Though it was ruled a TKO, it appears that it may have been a verbal submission due to strikes.  In either case, it was Mark Hunt’s superior punching power that dictated this fight.  The “Super Samoan” was able to defend Struve’s jiu jitsu game, even taking down the Dutchman and willingly engaging in a grappling match in the early rounds.  If finishing a top 10 heavyweight were not enough of a statement for Mark Hunt, doing it by breaking the man’s jaw will certainly launch the New Zealand kickboxer into the upper echelon of heavyweight contenders.

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