Few tears were shed for Rousimar Palhares on Tuesday, as the talented but troubled grappler was stripped of his World Series of Fighting welterweight title and suspended indefinitely, pending an athletic commission inquiry.
At this late and sorry point in the action, the only person in MMA still drying their eyes over Palhares is Jake Shields.
And that’s for very different reasons.
It was Palhares’ abuse of Shields last Saturday at WSOF 22 that proved the last straw for his fight company bosses—and maybe the final deathblow to his long, strange career too.
As WSOF President Ray Sefo told MMA Junkie’s Steven Marrocco, the organization will await a verdict from the Nevada State Athletic Commission before it decides what to do with the now former champion:
We don’t know if they’re going to suspend him for life, or they’re going to suspend him for a year. After that investigation is done, and the commission comes to a decision, we would obviously make another decision pending that.
Palhares’ refusal to immediately relinquish the kimura submission he used to notch a third-round victory over Shields probably wasn’t egregious enough to warrant MMA’s version of the death penalty.
At least not on its own.
At least not if anyone else had done it.
The 35-year-old Brazilian jiu-jitsu master’s sordid history with holding onto submissions too long and occasionally injuring his opponents, however, turned a misdemeanor offense into Palhares’ third strike.
Or, like, his ninth strike, depending on how closely you want to examine the guy’s career.
Also, there were the eye gouges.
That was a new wrinkle in Palhares’ bag of dirty tricks.
Shields said Palhares repeatedly raked his face and poked him in the eyes throughout their 12-minute main event bout. All told, the former Strkeforce champion estimated Palhares gouged him eight times, and that referee Steve Mazzagatti warned him but refused to penalize Palhares for the repeated fouls.
“I kept telling Mazzagatti, ‘Hey, look at the eye-gouges.’ And he wasn’t just saying anything about it,” Shields said after the fight, via MMA Junkie’s Dann Stupp and George Garcia. “It wasn’t once, twice. It was at least eight times. In over 40 fights, never once has anyone ever done that to me…what he did was absolutely blatant cheating.”
The NSAC will now take up Palhares’ case. At least in the immediate aftermath of the bout there seems to be widespread hope in MMA circles that the commission will throw the book at him:
If the NSAC cares to look, it’ll find no shortage of evidence that Palhares walks on the outskirts of the rules. Some 11 years and 24 fights into his MMA career, it also seems unlikely that he’s ever going to change.
Viewed with the benefit of hindsight, nearly every submission he’s ever scored during his high-profile run through the UFC and WSOF went on for an uncomfortably long time.
First it was Ivan Salaverry at UFC 84, then Lucio Linhares at UFC 107 and Tomasz Drwal at UFC 111. That last one netted Palhares a 90-day suspension from the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board for holding a heel hook submission too long.
After that, it was David Branch, Mike Massenzio and Mike Pierce before the UFC finally fired him.
With his UFC walking papers in hand, Palhares shipped out to WSOF, oddly buoyed by a wave of media scrutiny that dubbed him too scary for the Octagon. Once ensconced in the smaller promotion, he injured Steve Carl, tapped Jon Fitch and then made a mess of things against Shields.
Once you consider the entire, ugly resume, the NSAC would seem well within its bounds if it felt like imposing a lifetime ban.
But that would be a sad end for Palhares, if for no other reason than he might just be the best pure submission fighter in all of MMA. Back-to-back tapouts of guys like Fitch and Shields—who are both renowned for their durability and being difficult to submit, specifically—is an amazing accomplishment in and of itself.
After a serviceable career at middleweight, Palhares is 4-0 since dropping to welterweight in October 2013. All of those are submission victories and three of them came in the first round.
If a lengthy suspension does indeed come down, there will be no way to know how good Palhares might’ve been at 170 pounds, the accolades he might have piled up or how much money he might’ve made.
Unfortunately, his talents have long been overshadowed by his inability to play by the rules. Aside from his difficulty following a referee’s instructions, Palhares tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone after his loss to Hector Lombard in late 2012. Just in case you were looking for more reasons to dislike the guy.
On Tuesday, UFC fighter and submission specialist Joe Lauzon added his voice to the chorus against Palhares. Lauzon produced a video comparing his own reaction time at letting go of submissions to Palhares’. In what came as a surprise to absolutely no one, Palhares’ reactions were significantly slower.
“I think it’s bad, I think he’s being dangerous,” Lauzon said (h/t MMA Junkie). “I love jiu-jitsu, I think it’s awesome, but for me the best thing about jiu-jitsu is the respect that’s shown…beating people but giving them the chance to stop and tap before there’s real damage done.”
What Lauzon touches on here is a key point not only when it comes to Palhares, but also in the nature of mixed martial arts itself.
The tap is sacred. Following the referee’s orders is imperative. These two things aren’t just part of the sport, they are the sport. They are the simple acts that separate MMA from men brawling in barrooms, back alleys and parking lots.
We have a set of rules we all agree to follow, and adhering to them is the very thing that allows MMA to be more than just a sport of great violence. At its best, it can be a sport of great beauty. The rules are what make it possible for MMA to transcend much of its own violence, to elevate it and to be the sort of thing people are willing to shell out $60 to watch on pay-per-view.
If you don’t follow the rules, all of that is undone. The whole thing falls apart. We lapse back into the chaos that reigned during the sport’s early days. When that happens, then we are who they said we were those years ago—thugs, barbarians and criminals.
Palhares may soon have to learn a hard lesson about what it means to forget the rules. If the NSAC decides he belongs in one of those three last categories, almost no one will feel sorry for him.
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