UFC veteran Norman Parke has been on a tear of the European regional MMA scene since being released by the UFC in 2016. Following a unanimous decision loss to Rustam Khabilov, Parke faced Andrew Fisher at ACB 47 in October of 2016 in Scotland, a fight he won via unanimous decision. In his next fight, Parke picked up a majority decision win over Paul Redmond under the BAMMA banner in his home country of Northern Ireland.
Unfortunately for Parke, in his most recent fight, he dropped a unanimous decision to Mateusz Gamrot at KSW 39 in a failed bid for their lightweight title.
While Parke complained about the incident to the referee immediately, nothing was done about the incident, and Gamrot was not penalized for the blatantly illegal move.
“He shot in for a single leg, you know, and he was trying it a few times,” Parke explained, in an interview with Obviously Fight Talk, setting the scene for the incident. “So, he shot in for the single leg and I stayed heavy on it. And we were there for maybe 30 seconds a couple of times and I was threatening to go for a guillotine, but he was defending that pretty well. And then I thought I’d try and restrict his breathing, so I cupped my hand – you’re allowed to do it – I cupped my hand and placed it over his mouth to try and lead him into letting me sneak into a guillotine or something. But, he just slipped the head inside, popped my finger in and bit pretty hard. And that’s where it led from there.
“I kept gesturing to the ref to stop it. I said he bit me, but I don’t think he was really listening to it at the start. Until I actually says ‘Look, look, look.’ And then he says time. But definitely he bit the finger, I know he did it on purpose. Because I says to him after the fight, I says to him, ‘You did that on purpose. You knew I was too heavy on top, you weren’t gonna get me down.’ And he just said, ‘Ah, you’re too strong.’ Never mentioned anything about biting my finger.”
