Tag: cheap shots

Claudia Gadelha’s Sucker-Punch ‘Totally Different’ Than Paul Daley’s, According to Mind-Reading UFC President


(“You can’t put the slap back in the jar.” — Traditional Italian proverb that I just made up. / Photo via Getty)

By Trent Reinsmith

Dana White can see into your soul. At least, that’s sort of what the UFC president implied after Claudia Gadelha sucker-punched Joanna Jedrzejczyk following their strawweight fight at Saturday’s UFC on Fox 13 event.

The incident played out in a way that was very similar to the late punch that Paul Daley threw at Josh Koscheck after their UFC 113 fight had come to its conclusion. White wasted little time firing Daley from the UFC after his late strike, telling those at the post-fight press conference: “He’s done. I don’t give a shit if he’s the best 170-pounder in the world. He’ll never come back here again…I’m probably the most lenient guy in sports. And this is probably one of the most lenient organizations. We’re all human, we all make mistakes, things happen. There’s no excuse for that. These guys are professional athletes. You don’t ever hit a guy blatantly after the bell like that whether you’re frustrated or not. It was probably one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen…I don’t care if he fights in every show all over the world and becomes the best and everybody thinks he’s the pound-for-pound best in the world. He will never fight in the UFC ever again.”

I guess you could argue that due to the nature of the sport (basically punching another individual in the head), Daley should have gotten off with a strong warning, but White went with the nuclear option and permabanned Daley on the spot.

So, when Gadelha did pretty much the exact same thing after her fight with Jedrzejczyk had come to a close, the expectation would have been for White to appear at the UFC on Fox 13 post-fight press conference red-faced with anger. He didn’t — White more or less just shrugged it off.


(“You can’t put the slap back in the jar.” — Traditional Italian proverb that I just made up. / Photo via Getty)

By Trent Reinsmith

Dana White can see into your soul. At least, that’s sort of what the UFC president implied after Claudia Gadelha sucker-punched Joanna Jedrzejczyk following their strawweight fight at Saturday’s UFC on Fox 13 event.

The incident played out in a way that was very similar to the late punch that Paul Daley threw at Josh Koscheck after their UFC 113 fight had come to its conclusion. White wasted little time firing Daley from the UFC after his late strike, telling those at the post-fight press conference: “He’s done. I don’t give a shit if he’s the best 170-pounder in the world. He’ll never come back here again…I’m probably the most lenient guy in sports. And this is probably one of the most lenient organizations. We’re all human, we all make mistakes, things happen. There’s no excuse for that. These guys are professional athletes. You don’t ever hit a guy blatantly after the bell like that whether you’re frustrated or not. It was probably one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen…I don’t care if he fights in every show all over the world and becomes the best and everybody thinks he’s the pound-for-pound best in the world. He will never fight in the UFC ever again.”

I guess you could argue that due to the nature of the sport (basically punching another individual in the head), Daley should have gotten off with a strong warning, but White went with the nuclear option and permabanned Daley on the spot.

So, when Gadelha did pretty much the exact same thing after her fight with Jedrzejczyk had come to a close, the expectation would have been for White to appear at the UFC on Fox 13 post-fight press conference red-faced with anger. He didn’t — White more or less just shrugged it off.

The UFC president said of Gadelha’s actions, “People were going crazy on that one. She hit her after the bell, she did this, she did that.’ And then of course everybody goes back to Daley. ‘You kicked Daley out for that.’ The difference is this: when Daley did it to Koscheck, I was in there, and I went up to Daley because he was getting pulled around, and he didn’t care. He didn’t give a s–t. He looked right at me and said he didn’t care. As soon as (Gadelha) did it to (Jedrzejczyk), she reached her hand out and she apologized to her. She said ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ She apologized.” White then added, “Those two had a war. They’re in the heat of a battle. She landed a kick and then the bell rang, and then she hit her with a punch. And then she completely apologized for doing it. Totally different scenario.”

Yeah, no. It’s the same thing. She punched her opponent after the horn had sounded to end the fight. The only difference is that prior to this fight Gadelha was being touted as a potential title contender in a very thin weight class. In other words, the UFC needs to keep her around for the sake of the strawweight division. Daley was more or less expendable at the time he committed his foul.

White’s “she completely apologized” excuse for not punishing Gadelha for the illegal strike is almost as laughable as UFC commentator Joe Rogan’s claim of, “I don’t think she was trying to hit her there, I think she was trying to like high five her or something.”

Remorse or lack of remorse should have nothing to do with how these things are dealt with because there’s no way to tell if the remorse is legitimate or feigned. When someone is caught red-handed doing something they shouldn’t, of course they’re going to go through some sort of calculation as to how they can get out of trouble or at least minimize the punishment. (For the record, Daley apologized the next day after cheap-shotting Koscheck.)

How White can discern the level of real remorse that Gadelha had after the late punch is beyond me. Yet there he was proclaiming that he knew that Gadelha was sorry for her actions because, you know, she acted like she was sorry. If that’s all it takes to get out of trouble with White, one can only imagine the havoc that his children get away with.

The bottom line is Gadelha broke the same rule that Daley did in pretty much the same way Daley did, and she walked away from it without even getting a stern look from the UFC boss.

In other words, hypocritical business as usual for the UFC’s head honcho.

On This Day in MMA History: Paul Daley Sucker Punches Josh Koscheck, Earns Lifetime Ban From the UFC

By Ben Goldstein

Banning a cage-fighter for punching his opponent in the face is kind of like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500. Of course, context is everything in MMA. Between the first horn and the final horn, you’re allowed to inflict massive head trauma and wrench limbs until they break apart, as long as you avoid the relatively small list of no-nos set forth in the Unified Rules. But if you hit a guy directly after the fight is over? You’re garbage, and nobody wants you.

I’m not trying to call that hypocritical in any way. In fact, it’s these small distinctions — these subtle nods to context and polite behavior — that prevent mixed martial arts from devolving into pure barbarism. Otherwise, MMA would eventually become Thunderdome, and nobody wants that. Well, I’m sure some people want that. But we’re not sociopaths, are we? We’re sports fans. At the end of the day, having fights end with mentally handicapped man-children literally dying in the cage does us no good as a society.

(By the way, how many times have I referenced Master Blaster while running this site? Dozens of times? Thousands? Indeed, it has been a long journey.)

Four years ago today — May 8th, 2010 — at UFC 113 in Montreal, Paul Daley spent three rounds being smothered by the superior wrestling of Josh Koscheck. The fight was as dull as it was predictable. Clearly, Koscheck wasn’t interested in a standup battle against Paul Daley, one of the most dangerous welterweight strikers in MMA history. So, Kos scored a few takedowns and hung out in top position for fifteen minutes. And when it was all over, Paul Daley got to his feet and popped him one.

By Ben Goldstein

Banning a cage-fighter for punching his opponent in the face is kind of like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500. Of course, context is everything in MMA. Between the first horn and the final horn, you’re allowed to inflict massive head trauma and wrench limbs until they break apart, as long as you avoid the relatively small list of no-nos set forth in the Unified Rules. But if you hit a guy directly after the fight is over? You’re garbage, and nobody wants you.

I’m not trying to call that hypocritical in any way. In fact, it’s these small distinctions — these subtle nods to context and polite behavior — that prevent mixed martial arts from devolving into pure barbarism. Otherwise, MMA would eventually become Thunderdome, and nobody wants that. Well, I’m sure some people want that. But we’re not sociopaths, are we? We’re sports fans. At the end of the day, having fights end with mentally handicapped man-children literally dying in the cage does us no good as a society.

(By the way, how many times have I referenced Master Blaster while running this site? Dozens of times? Thousands? Indeed, it has been a long journey.)

Four years ago today — May 8th, 2010 — at UFC 113 in Montreal, Paul Daley spent three rounds being smothered by the superior wrestling of Josh Koscheck. The fight was as dull as it was predictable. Clearly, Koscheck wasn’t interested in a standup battle against Paul Daley, one of the most dangerous welterweight strikers in MMA history. So, Kos scored a few takedowns and hung out in top position for fifteen minutes. And when it was all over, Paul Daley got to his feet and popped him one.

It was a desperate move born out of frustration and a total lack of impulse control.  Apparently, Koscheck was talking shit to Daley during the entire fight, which doesn’t excuse Daley’s actions, but helps to illustrate what an unpleasant experience that fight must have been for the British slugger. As soon as the sucker-punch landed, referee Dan Miragliotta jumped in to restrain Daley, barking “ARE YOU KIDDIN’ ME?” in his burly East Coast accent, reflecting the utter disbelief of everybody who was watching this unfold live. The infamous Strikeforce Nashville brawl had happened less than a month earlier, and now the sport had another public embarrassment to deal with. Suddenly, Paul Daley was the biggest heel in MMA. Then, Josh Koscheck grabbed the mic and immediately reclaimed that title…

Whatever sympathy Koscheck briefly gained from being cheap-shotted was immediately snuffed out when he started insulting Montreal’s sports heroes, unprovoked, in a classic example of his cartoonish assholism. Seven months later, Koscheck returned to Montreal to get torn apart by Georges St-Pierre, in a beatdown so satisfying that we named a Potato Award after it.

But back to the night in question: Immediately after the sucker-punch incident, UFC president Dana White buried Paul Daley in the post-fight press conference, promising that “Semtex” would never fight in the UFC again:

“He’s done. I don’t give a shit if he’s the best 170-pounder in the world. He’ll never come back here again…I’m probably the most lenient guy in sports. And this is probably one of the most lenient organizations. We’re all human, we all make mistakes, things happen. [But] there’s no excuse for that. These guys are professional athletes. You don’t ever hit a guy blatantly after the bell like that whether you’re frustrated or not. It was probably one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen…I don’t care if he fights in every show all over the world and becomes the best and everybody thinks he’s the pound-for-pound best in the world. He will never fight in the UFC ever again.”

So far, White has stuck to his word, and Daley has spent the past four years roaming the Earth. He missed weight for a September 2010 Shark Fights appearance against Jorge Masvidal (which Daley won), and missed weight for two separate BAMMA fights in 2011 (which he also won). He went 1-3 in Strikeforce. He showed up in Bellator in 2012 to knock out Rudy Bears, before being released from the promotion due to visa issues stemming from a bar fight arrest. He’s done some kickboxing, and scored violent KO’s in minor promotions east of the Atlantic. He has pleaded for another chance.

And if he hadn’t punched Josh Koscheck after the bell, that one fateful night in Montreal, then what? Maybe he’d stick around for a few more years, collecting UFC knockout bonuses against mid-level veterans, winning a couple and losing one, winning a couple and losing one, until finally the UFC realized he was making too much money for a guy who would never work his way up to a title shot. And in that alternate universe, Paul Daley would be signed to World Series of Fighting right now. I’m not sure which scenario is worse.

Also at UFC 113…

– Mauricio “Shogun” Rua became the UFC light-heavyweight champion by knocking out Lyoto Machida in their rematch.

– Kimbo Slice was TKO’d by Matt Mitrione in his second official Octagon appearance, then released by the UFC.

– Jason MacDonald’s leg snapped and his opponent John Salter was super psyched about it.

Morning Knockout: Sheila Gaff Skips the Glove Tap, Wrecks Jennifer Maia in 10 Seconds

(Props: TheMMAClinic)

Sheila “The German Tank” Gaff scored her third-straight knockout victory on Friday night, when she dummied up Chute Boxe product Jennifer Maia in just 10 seconds at Cage Warriors Fighting Championship 4 in Dubai. Gaff’s strategy relied on the element of surprise; instead of returning Maia’s offer for a glove-tap at the beginning of the fight, Gaff swung an overhand right with lethal intentions, then fired punches and knees until she found Maia’s off-switch with a short right hook.

Not the worst cheap-shot we’ve seen, but it’s definitely in the mix. Gaff doesn’t seem to be a big fan of the glove-tap in general. For proof, check out her eight-second knockout of Hanna Sillen from last February after the jump, which begins and ends just as furiously…


(Props: TheMMAClinic)

Sheila “The German Tank” Gaff scored her third-straight knockout victory on Friday night, when she dummied up Chute Boxe product Jennifer Maia in just 10 seconds at Cage Warriors Fighting Championship 4 in Dubai. Gaff’s strategy relied on the element of surprise; instead of returning Maia’s offer for a glove-tap at the beginning of the fight, Gaff swung an overhand right with lethal intentions, then fired punches and knees until she found Maia’s off-switch with a short right hook.

Not the worst cheap-shot we’ve seen, but it’s definitely in the mix. Gaff doesn’t seem to be a big fan of the glove-tap in general. For proof, check out her eight-second knockout of Hanna Sillen from last February after the jump, which begins and ends just as furiously…

Knockout of the Week: Justice Is Served for Glove-Tap Faker

(Props: TheCageDoor.net via MMA Scraps. Fight starts at the 0:19 mark.)
It’s one of the biggest bitch-moves in MMA — acting like you’re going to tap gloves at the start of a fight like a gentleman, and then launching a surprise attack as soo…

(Props: TheCageDoor.net via MMA Scraps. Fight starts at the 0:19 mark.)

It’s one of the biggest bitch-moves in MMA — acting like you’re going to tap gloves at the start of a fight like a gentleman, and then launching a surprise attack as soon as your opponent is in range. (For examples, see here, here, and here.) At a Legacy FC event in Houston on July 31st, JR Fuller decided to try the unsportsmanlike technique himself, but instead of firing an overhand right like the successful fakers that came before him, he shoots for a takedown. Big mistake. Jonathan Harris throws a perfectly-timed knee, Fuller eats it and hits the mat face-first, Tyson Griffin-style. The official time of the stoppage was 0:05, but the jackass was really out within two seconds. Proving once again, boys and girls: Cheaters never prosper.