Big fighters. Small fighters. Rich fighters. Poor fighters. Ground fighters. Stand-up fighters. Mixed martial arts contains multitudes, fighters seemingly crafted especially to fulfill their role in the combat sports ecosystem.
But, in this vast sea of archetypes and stereotypes, there is only one Rousimar Palhares, the World Series of Fighting welterweight champion who submitted longtime UFC contender Jon Fitch in just 90 seconds Saturday night on NBCSN.
Fighting is all about misdirection. The most successful prize fighters are the ones who lull opponents into a false sense of security, zigging left at the exact moment their foe expects them to zag right. Trickery, much more than pure force, is the hallmark of the world’s best.
Perhaps that, even more than the string of bodies he’s left laying in his wake, is why Palhares inspires such terror. There is nothing tricky about anything he does. His purpose is single-minded. His approach is entirely predictable.
And, when the opportunity to strike arises, he is impossible to stop. Fitch, like everyone who steps into the cage with Palhares, told me last week that he knew exactly what to expect.
“He’s a master of what he does. His body and frame are built exceptionally well to do just that—to attack the ankles and legs,” Fitch said. “A lot of guys just avoid the leglock stuff, either because they don’t understand it or some people look down on the idea of twisting on somebody’s leg and they don’t want to learn how to do it. It’s really interesting that he’s specialized in this one thing. But it works for him. He’s good at it and he’s able to utilize it.”
He drilled endlessly to stop Palhares‘ patented attack. He knew what to do in order to combat each submission. One of the smartest fighters in the game, Fitch was fully prepared for what Palhares was going to do.
It didn‘t matter.
Built like a tiny tank, all bulging muscles and tiny compact limbs, Palhares was seemingly born to crank on an opponent’s appendage. Knowing what he intends to do means very little when he’s stronger, meaner and simply better at the leglock battle that is to come anytime the fight approaches the mat.
Many fighters, as grappling expert Ricky Lundell explained to MMA Fighting’s Luke Thomas, are ill-prepared to truly defend against a leglock expert because of the paranoia that surrounds the holds in the Brazilian jiu jitsu community:
Leglocks have been viewed as taboo in jiu-jitsu for many years. It wasn’t long ago that you would be basically booed off the mat for submitting your opponent with a leglock or some of type of lower body submission hold. I feel that when people don’t fully understand something, they discredit it. They become afraid of it. Because of this, they start to even create a false propaganda and try to strike fear into other practitioners and try to keep them away from leglocks.
And then there’s the matter of Palhares‘ hidden edge. He isn’t afraid to cripple an opponent—and everybody knows it. Palhares has a well-deserved reputation for holding on to his submissions just a little bit too long, literally forcing the referee to physically intervene before loosening his grip.
With a regular hold, that wouldn’t be a huge concern. A second here or there would be bad form, sure. But it wouldn’t have huge repercussions on an opponent’s future. Leglocks don’t work that way, though. As Fitch outlined in our interview, the submissions Palhares specializes in are particularly dangerous because they are often doing immense damage before an opponent realizes he’s in trouble.
This insistence on making sure, really sure, an opponent is finished has done real harm, not just to opponents, but to his own career. In 2010, New Jersey suspended Palhares for 90 days after his leglock submission victory over Tomasz Drwal extended a little longer than the 45 seconds it took him to make Drwal tap.
Last October, Palhares faced an even more severe sanction. After submitting Mike Pierce with a heel hook in just 31 seconds, he refused to break his hold. It cost him a $50,000 Submission of the Night bonus—and his job.
“This is the second incident we’ve had with Palhares where he had the lock and he didn‘t let it go,” UFC president Dana White told ESPN’s Jeremy Schaap the next day. “Finally he let it go. I’m going to cut him too…he’s done.”
In the aftermath, Palhares signed with the World Series of Fighting knowing full well his behavior would be scrutinized under a very large microscope. He won their welterweight championship in March in just over a minute, the heel hook again his weapon of choice. It was your garden variety submission win—but, as MMA Junkie’s Ben Fowlkes explained, even the innocuous looked sinister when Palhares was involved:
You didn’t need Nostradamus to know that people would be watching him very closely in his first post-UFC outing, especially if he managed to lock on his submission of choice. The fact that some saw controversy in such a run-of-the-mill finish only tells us that Palhares was, at least to some extent, doomed before he began.
Is that unfair? Yeah, a little. It’s also not entirely unearned.
Against Fitch, however, there was a little more room for doubt. Watching in slow motion, you can see a shrieking former UFC star tap Palhares nine times on the leg, each concession a bit more frantic than the last. By the fourth tap, the referee, too, was on the scene and physically attempting to stop the fight.
Palhares, as usual, walked a fine line. It wasn’t normal, not quite. But it didn‘t quite cross over into straight-up assault. It was gray—a color that has come to define the Brazilian’s career.
It was a win that served two purposes. It established Palhares, arguably, as a legitimate contender for the title of “best welterweight in the world.” But it also likely reaffirmed the UFC’s decision to leave Palhares on the outside looking in. Some fighters, even in a sport like MMA, are just too dangerous for something that’s ultimately just a game.
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