Starnes went to the Sherdog forums and explains how he got it and why he was yelling at his own corner when they stopped the fight. Notable quote:
I got hit with an elbow early in the first round. In the second round the ref stopped the action so the doctor could look at the cut. The doctor said “How is your vision?” I said “There’s blood in my eye” Yves Lavigne said “If you say you can’t see he’ll stop the fight” I said “I can see, there’s no problem, I want to fight” The doctor spread the cut open with his thumbs and said “I can see his skull, I’m stopping it” I said “I want to continue” and looked at my cornerman. My cornerman was staring at my cut and yelling “Why are you stopping the fight?”, “What are you doing?”. His comments were directed at the referee, but because he was staring at me, I was confused. That is why I became so angry, because I did not quit, and I thought that he was accusing me of quitting. We sorted things out afterwords. That’s something that bothers me a lot after Ken Shamrock said that I was not injured on that show when I had a serious injury. I still take a lot of heat for that son-of-a-bitch’s ignorant comments.
After the fight Yves Lavigne came up to me and said “I don’t know why he stopped it, you did everything right, you told him you wanted to continue. The fight was close you were right there I would not have stopped it”. “Stitch” and “House” the official UFC cutmen said the same thing. I haven’t heard the color commentary yet but it seems to have confused some people. I’m extremely disappointed with what happened, I had a lot more fight in me, I have never been cut like that in a fight. That’s what happened, if you want to corroborate the story just ask the referee. Congratulations Alan Belcher, I hope you’ll give me a rematch.
