Here we are roughly a fourth of the way through February and I still find myself caught up in the goings on of January. The month had some great cards, some great fights, and some great controversies. Sadly, despite all of the “discussion” over the events in January I feel some points have been glossed over or ignored entirely. Since I need a break for coding and despite my better judgment I figured I’d just throw a few things out there.
GreaseGate
First of all, stop it with the “Gate” shit. Nixon resigned about 35 years ago. The events transpired (that means happened) before anyone 35 or younger was even born. I’m sick and tired of every controversy needing to be a gate: “Spygate”, “Greasegate”, “Redheadgate”. Just let it go. We don’t need fancy tag lines and theme music for every incident of note.
Secondly, who the hell complains about greasing *AFTER* a fight? Imagine losing game 7 of the world series and then coming out and saying, “Uhh yeah we think the pitcher was doctoring the ball in the 7th inning of game 4″. We aren’t talking about illegal gloves that are off by an ounce or something that is undetectable.
Here you are rolling with this guy for minutes, your legs are on his back from guard, your hands have been all over him. Honestly, was BJ getting rubbed down between rounds too from all the transfer?
Here’s how the situation should of played out…
GSP – Takedown
BJ – Holy Shit this guy is greasy. Hey ref, look at this, look at my hands, gross! touch this guys back.
Seriously, how do you go 4 rounds with someone you think is cheating in a very easily proven way? I’m pretty sure if I were in a fight getting cut up by glass glued to the end of gloves I might swing by the ref between rounds and show him some of the shrapnel in my face and ask him if he could stop ogling the ring girl long enough to check the guy’s gloves. I’m not saying that’s the best approach, but ya know, might be worth a try. *shrugs*
Close it, Close it!
I might be the only one, but did anyone else hear “Close it, Close it” in Yosemite Sam’s voice as Arlovski was crashing to the mat in the Fedor fight? Basically the fight went:
- Strike with me
- Strike with me
- Don’t hit me, don’t hit me
- I hate rabbits
On a more seriously note, I don’t think people grasp how much credit they are giving Fedor when they praise Arlovski. This was a 5X5 fight and by “winning” 3 minutes of it, that’s 12%. Arlovski got heaped with praise. Imagine that, 12% of the potential fight length before losing and Arlovski actually improved in some people’s eyes. This is a fighter almost universally accepted at #2-6(ish) and 3 minutes of not losing is being viewed by some as legendary.
Now let me be clear here, I’m one of the people that actually expected Arlovski to win. He’s got a toolset that can, and did, give Fedor problems. I am in no way taking away from him as a fighter, but some people are out of their minds on this fight.
It was 12% of the entire fight. It was only 60% of the FIRST ROUND. What if fedor doesn’t treat Arlovski like skeet shooting practice at that point and simple scores a knockdown. Fedor does some “weak” ground and pound, they jockey for position a bit and we’ll even say the round ends with Arlovski getting back to his feet. At that point does Arlovski even get credit for winning the round?
Remember, Arlovski had no knockdowns, no sub attempts, he didn’t cut fedor, etc. Arlovski controlled the ring quite well, was fairly agressive and I think most would agree he was winning the first 3 minutes (give or take crashing to the mat unconcious).
Are we really at a point where lasting 12% into a fight with Fedor before clearly losing is a major accomplishment?
Why don’t people talk more about other fights where one fighter was “winning” before clearly losing. I don’t remember a ton of people touting Forrest for winning two rounds against Rashad before getting pummeled about the head and shoulders. Many seem to ignore that Clay Guida had won the first two rounds against Roger Huerta before losing it in the third. What about Manny Vs. Nate on the TUF finale? Manny was winning the fight, he hurt his own shoulder going for a take down and nate wound up getting the win. Almost no one even talks about that.
Honestly people if not losing for 3 minutes of a 25 minute fight is a noteworthy accomplishment then you shouldn’t be in that ring. You need to get yourself a restraining order, a well trained sniper and a stunt double. Arlovski is an amazing fighter and I’d gladly watch a rematch (I’d probably even expect him to win then too), but there is no way you can tout Arlovski for what he “accomplished” without de facto saying that Fedor is just that far above other people.
Rain out
At WEC 38 Jaime Varner won a Technical Decision against Donald “cowboy” Cerrone. The thing that amazes me about this fight is that people talk about almost everything except the fact that, Varner won a Decision!
Some will talk about whether Varner should have continued or not. Some will talk about whether the Knee landed. Some people argue whether the moon landings are fake or not. All of those take a backseat to the simple fact that Varner *WON A DECISION*. Maybe caps and pretty asterisks will help get the point through.
People need to realize that this wasn’t a fight that Cowboy was dominating. This wasn’t like Anderson Silva versus Okami where Silva got DQ’d for an illegal kick. Cowboy wasn’t dominating the fight for 20+ minutes, then accused of making an illegal strike and DQ’d for it.
Whether Varner could have or even should have continued seems pretty moot. Unless you believe that cowboy was going to finish the fight for a win in the final few minutes (he hadn’t yet) then it’s irrelevant that the fight went to the score cards a few minutes sooner.
I know some will take this as Anti-Cowboy or Pro-Varner, but it’s honestly neither of those things. My issue is that some people talk like Cowboy was dominating the fight, that Varner was saved by the bell a couple of times and that in the midst of going for the win Cowboy accidentally landed a blow construed as illegal and had his win given to Varner.
What really happened is that Varner went out and won the majority of the fight (according to the judges), reportedly with a broken hand/foot, then when caught with an illegal strike choose to go to the score cards immediately instead of trying to continue and going to them in a few minutes if no one ended the fight.
If you want to say that Varner should have continued that’s fine, if you want to claim he wasn’t “that” injured that’s ok too, but people need to stop acting like an illegal strike is why Cowboy lost. The reason Cowboy lost is because the judges felt he lost the fight and scored it accordingly.