Jeff Monson’s left eye was a shiny blue-back and his mouth bloody and swollen, having been knocked into a Mike Tyson-like lisp. The American fighter had endured a tough beating for the three-round fight, but it was the repeated kicks from Fedor Emelianenko, Russia’s most decorated MMA fighter, to the back of his knee where the sciatic nerve is closest to the skin that ultimately stopped Monson, known as the “the Snowman” in the fighting circles, from taking the Russian champion down to the ground in front of thousands of cheering fans on Nov. 20, 2011, in Moscow’s Olympic Stadium.
