(Gentlemen, no need to show me the door, because THERE IT IS RIGHT THERE!)
There aren’t many fighters in the UFC who have had longer layoffs in between fights than Carlos Eduardo Rocha. Well, maybe before this summer began, that is. Fighting just three times between November of 2010 and June of 2012, Rocha’s 1-2 UFC record included a submission via kneebar win over Kris McCray and a pair of close decision losses to Jake Ellenberger at UFC 126 and most recently, Mike Pierce at UFC on FX 3. The latter fight, which you may recall was originally scored a split decision victory for Pierce rather than a UD thanks to the general incompetency of Floridians, was a relatively lackluster affair that was dominated by Pierce’s clinch and wrestling game ala Couture vs. Vera.
It might surprise you to learn that Rocha, an incredibly decorated BJJ practitioner whose only trips to the scorecards have come in the UFC, was let go following the loss. As one might understand, Rocha was none too happy to learn of this news, and quickly vented his frustrations (mainly, those relating to Pierce’s performance) when interviewed by Tatame:
I went there to fight MMA and he wants to win by points. There were 15 minutes of pure stalling This is bullshit. And UFC fires me after a fight where the guy just stood there stalling. I had good performances and even so I was cut off. I didn’t expect this.
Ah, the Nick Diaz defense. Classy move, Mr. Rocha.
More from this interview after the jump.
(Gentlemen, no need to show me the door, because THERE IT IS RIGHT THERE!)
There aren’t many fighters in the UFC who have had longer layoffs in between fights than Carlos Eduardo Rocha. Well, maybe before this summer began, that is. Fighting just three times between November of 2010 and June of 2012, Rocha’s 1-2 UFC record included a submission via kneebar win over Kris McCray and a pair of close decision losses to Jake Ellenberger at UFC 126 and most recently, Mike Pierce at UFC on FX 3. The latter fight, which you may recall was originally scored a split decision victory for Pierce rather than a UD thanks to the general incompetency of Floridians, was a relatively lackluster affair that was dominated by Pierce’s clinch and wrestling game ala Couture vs. Vera.
It might surprise you to learn that Rocha, an incredibly decorated BJJ practitioner whose only trips to the scorecards have come in the UFC, was let go following the loss. As one might understand, Rocha was none too happy to learn of this news, and quickly vented his frustrations (mainly, those relating to Pierce’s performance) when interviewed by Tatame:
I went there to fight MMA and he wants to win by points. There were 15 minutes of pure stalling This is bullshit. And UFC fires me after a fight where the guy just stood there stalling. I had good performances and even so I was cut off. I didn’t expect this.
Ah, the Nick Diaz defense. Classy move, Mr. Rocha.
Wasn’t he the one who said he’d fight any Brazilian because it’s an easy fight? I thought he could come for me but he didn’t. He didn’t attack me on the clinch, he didn’t hit me nor let me hit him. That’s not MMA. There was one promotion (that made him an offer), but the guy didn’t wanna fight me. Now let’s move on, keep my head up. I never give up. I know I’ll get better next time so I can have another chance in the UFC.
As much as we tend to crucify (or at least condescend) fighters who bitch about their opponent’s gameplan in hindsight, Rocha kind of has a point here. Aside from the aforementioned trash talk Pierce was spouting leading up to the fight, his past two losses have come as the result of close split decisions. One could even argue that he deserved the nod in his loss to Josh Koscheck at UFC 143, so the fact that Pierce seemed all too content to ride out another decision against a relatively low-level guy like Rocha seems like kind of a weak move on his part. Plus, when the BJJ guy is complaining about not being hit enough, you know the fight must have sucked.
Then again, it takes two to tango, so if Rocha really wanted to do something to negate Pierce’s wall-n-stall tactics, perhaps he should have trained takedown defense and clinch work just a bit more in the months before the fight. In either case, at least he’s looking to the future and not dwelling on this loss for too long.
And hey, there’s always Strikeforce. They still have a welterweight division, right?
(We’re on your side, Joe, but blowing up Cecil Peoples’ house might have been taking it a little far.)
It may be old news at this point, but the UFC’s recent trip to Florida, though rife with entertaining fights and exciting finishes, was basically a clusterfuck of refereeing and judging incompetence. MMAFighting’s Mike Chiappetta wrote a very thorough article detailing all of the things that went wrong that night, but here’s the basic run down for those of you who don’t like to have all of those pesky words get in the way of your reading:
-The Henry Martinez vs. Bernardo Magalhaes fight was originally scored a UD win for Martiniez, but was later changed to a split decision when the scorecards were looked over again.
-The Mike Pierce/Carlos Eduardo Rocha fight ran into the opposite problem. It was originally scored a SD for Pierce, a notion that was responsible for more blown minds than the ending of Saw. It took the judges some four days to realize that it was actually scored a unanimous decision for Pierce.
-Lance Benoist was able to illegally strike Seth Baczynski twice without being deducted a point.
-Tim Means, on the other hand, nearly beat Justin Salas to death before the ref decided to step in.
Aside from all of this, the commission also managed to drop the ball twice at the pre-fight weigh-ins, incorrectly announcing the weights of both Means and Benoist before realizing their errors. But we’d specifically like to focus on the staggering inadequacy of the judges. Because judging, unlike any other occupation, is seemingly non-performance based. Time after time we’ve seen the same familiar faces make royal asses of themselves on the job, always to find the same job waiting for them come Monday morning.
But thankfully, MMA’s patron saint of subjectivity, Joe Rogan, is here to lay it on the line for these inept jackasses who seem to be actively trying to ruin the sport.
(We’re on your side, Joe, but blowing up Cecil Peoples’ house might have been taking it a little far.)
It may be old news at this point, but the UFC’s recent trip to Florida, though rife with entertaining fights and exciting finishes, was basically a clusterfuck of refereeing and judging incompetence. MMAFighting’s Mike Chiappetta wrote a very thorough article detailing all of the things that went wrong that night, but here’s the basic run down for those of you who don’t like to have all of those pesky words get in the way of your reading:
-The Henry Martinez vs. Bernardo Magalhaes fight was originally scored a UD win for Martiniez, but was later changed to a split decision when the scorecards were looked over again.
-The Mike Pierce/Carlos Eduardo Rocha fight ran into the opposite problem. It was originally scored a SD for Pierce, a notion that was responsible for more blown minds than the ending of Saw. It took the judges some four days to realize that it was actually scored a unanimous decision for Pierce.
-Lance Benoist was able to illegally strike Seth Baczynski twice without being deducted a point.
-Tim Means, on the other hand, nearly beat Justin Salas to death before the ref decided to step in.
Aside from all of this, the commission also managed to drop the ball twice at the pre-fight weigh-ins, incorrectly announcing the weights of both Means and Benoist before realizing their errors. But we’d specifically like to focus on the staggering inadequacy of the judges. Because judging, unlike any other occupation, is seemingly non-performance based. Time after time we’ve seen the same familiar faces make royal asses of themselves on the job, always to find the same job waiting for them come Monday morning.
But thankfully, MMA’s patron saint of subjectivity, Joe Rogan, is here to lay it on the line for these inept jackasses who seem to be actively trying to ruin the sport. According to a recent interview with BloodyElbow, Rogan thinks that these judges should be relieved of their duties if they refuse to learn the ins and outs of the sport they are supposed to be monitoring:
I think they should fire judges that suck. I don’t understand how someone can keep their job over and over again while screwing up over and over. What do you call that exactly? Extreme incompetence. How does someone judge any sort of combat sport without at least a passing interest in the sport? If you pulled aside, and I don’t want to name any names, but if you pulled aside some of those judges from the Nevada State Athletic Commission, that has notoriously had horrific scoring, and started asking them about fighters that aren’t fighting in the UFC, would they know anything about them? Would they know anything about who the top judo guy is? Would they even know anything about Gilbert Melendez and how good he is?
Do these guys know how you set up an armbar? If I sat them down and said, ‘Do an armbar on this guy’, would they be able to do that? I think you’ve got to know when a guy’s in trouble and when a guy’s not in trouble, and the only way to know that, is to have actually trained. I don’t think you can be a person who judges martial arts without being an expert in martial arts.
I have never had a mixed martial arts fight, but I’m a martial arts expert. I’ve been a martial arts expert since I was a little boy. I know what I’m really good at, and I know what I don’t understand as well, but I have dedicated my entire life to martial arts. It’s been a focus of mine since I was a growing boy, so when I commentate on MMA, I do it with the passion of someone who is 100% a fan. If I had to choose between my job with the UFC and not being a fan anymore, I would for sure just quit working.
Look, we’re not going to rant about the current state of MMA judging, because we’ve already been there, and in fact, we tried to offer some solutions. But suffice it to say, we couldn’t agree more with Rogan. The fact that these judges who seemingly have little to no understanding of the various aspects of MMA, or their effectiveness in an actual fight, is beyond ridiculous, and they need to either study up or shut up, so to speak. An incorrect score could mean the difference between a fighter getting a call back from the organization or being let go, and should not be taken as lightly as it has been up to this point.
And if many of the UFC’s in-ring employees are at risk of losing their job with every performance, why shouldn’t those who are responsible for determining their fate be as well? The obvious answer for the fighters who most often rely on the judges *cough* Dominick Cruz *cough*would be to do as Kenny Florian does and simply finish fights. But to our knowledge, there are very few fighters who can claim that they’ve never been to the judges, and they shouldn’t exactly live in fear that if they do happen to go the distance, they’ll be punished for it as the result of some else’s incompetence.
The BankAtlantic Center played host to the UFC on Friday night, as the rematch between Demetrious Johnson and Ian “Uncle Creepy” McCall headlined an action-packed fight card for UFC on FX 3. Johnson and McCall first met earlier this year …
The BankAtlantic Center played host to the UFC on Friday night, as the rematch between Demetrious Johnson and Ian “Uncle Creepy” McCall headlined an action-packed fight card for UFC on FX 3.
Johnson and McCall first met earlier this year in the first round of the flyweight tournament, with Johnson originally being announced as the winner by majority decision. However, we later found out that there was an error on the scorecards and the bout was actually a draw.
With a “sudden death” fourth round missed due to the incorrect scoring, the decision was then made to have a rematch headline the FX card on June 8. The bout was the first UFC card to ever feature flyweights in the main event.
That historic fight will be remembered, but it was only part of what made this a highly entertaining fight card. Here are the 10 most memorable moments from UFC on FX 3: Johnson vs. McCall.
Team Quest vs. Brazil?It’s certainly beginning to look that way.In an exclusive interview with Bleacher Report’s Garrett Derr, UFC welterweight Mike Pierce sat down to discuss his upcoming bout with Carlos Eduardo Rocha at UFC on FX 3.”I sent out on Tw…
“I sent out on Twitter that I wanted an easy fight, so I called out all Brazilians in the 170-pound division. Carlos answered, so I got the fight that I wanted…I’ll be able to exploit everything. I think the only tool that he has that is any good, is his ground game. He’s pretty good at these weird scrambles and being on the ground. Other than that, I think that he’s a fish out of water.”
It shouldn’t surprise people that Pierce is taking an aggressive stance towards Brazilian fighters. His teammate and top middleweight contender, Chael Sonnen, has made a name off various feuds with South American fighters, including UFC champ Anderson Silva.
The more interesting question is whether or not Pierce is using social media to follow in Sonnen’s footsteps.
The Portland, Oregon native has been in the UFC for nearly three years, but he has yet to break from the shadows. Even after a controversial split decision loss to Josh Koscheck, Pierce remains relatively unknown to casual MMA fans.
For his teammate Sonnen, however, business is booming. His world class fighting abilities combined with an entertaining public persona has seemingly turned him into a superstar overnight.
At UFC 148, Sonnen will have an opportunity to take his stardom to new heights when he meets Silva in a rematch for the UFC middleweight title.
Pierce weighs in on the highly anticipated bout:
“I think Chael is going to go in there and do what he did the first time around. He’s going to go in there and do what he did the first time around and not get caught in a submission this time. You rarely make the same mistake twice. I’m hoping he goes in there and beats the guy for five straight rounds. There’s a chance he finishes him, but I’m not sure what is more gratifying, having him finish him or beat his ass for 25 minutes. I think that would be more gratifying.”
The UFC makes a stop in Sunrise, Florida, tomorrow night for their latest UFC on FX event, featuring a flyweight rerun, a handful of veterans on the main card, and a murderer’s row of nobodies on the prelims. But is it skippable? Maybe not. After studying the card, we’ve found a few somewhat credible reasons to watch this thing. Read on, and if you’re around tomorrow night, be sure to come back to CagePotato.com for our liveblog of the “Johnson vs. McCall” main card, which kicks off at 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT.
#1: It’s make-or-break time for Leonard Garcia. The last time that “Bad Boy” beat anybody decisively was his first-round TKO of Jens Pulver at WEC 36, back in November 2008. That was ten fights ago. Since then, Garcia has gone 3-5-1, with all three of those wins coming by split-decision. Two of those wins are widely considered to be bullshitrobberies, and were later avenged in rematches with the “losing” fighters, Chan Sung Jung and Nam Phan. Basically, Garcia’s record since 2009 should really be 1-7-1, and even that lone legit victory (against Jameel Massouh at WEC 42) could have easily gone the other way.
Now, Garcia finds himself on the preliminary card of an FX show, against Matt Grice, whose overall UFC record stands at 1-4, including the first-round TKO loss that Grice suffered against Ricardo Lamas in his last fight. Garcia vs. Grice has all the markings of a “win or go home” match. It doesn’t matter if Leonard turns it into an exciting brawl — if he loses, he’s on extremely thin ice, and we may not see him back again.
The UFC makes a stop in Sunrise, Florida, tomorrow night for their latest UFC on FX event, featuring a flyweight re-run, a handful of veterans on the main card, and a murderer’s row of nobodies on the prelims. But is it skippable? Maybe not. After studying the card, we’ve found a few somewhat credible reasons to watch this thing. Read on, and if you’re around tomorrow night, be sure to come back to CagePotato.com for our liveblog of the “Johnson vs. McCall” main card, which kicks off at 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT.
#1: It’s make-or-break time for Leonard Garcia. The last time that “Bad Boy” beat anybody decisively was his first-round TKO of Jens Pulver at WEC 36, back in November 2008. That was ten fights ago. Since then, Garcia has gone 3-5-1, with all three of those wins coming by split-decision. Two of those wins are widely considered to be bullshitrobberies, and were later avenged in rematches with the “losing” fighters, Chan Sung Jung and Nam Phan. Basically, Garcia’s record since 2009 should really be 1-7-1, and even that lone legit victory (against Jameel Massouh at WEC 42) could have easily gone the other way.
Now, Garcia finds himself on the preliminary card of an FX show, against Matt Grice, whose overall UFC record stands at 1-4, including the first-round TKO loss that Grice suffered against Ricardo Lamas in his last fight. Garcia vs. Grice has all the markings of a “win or go home” match. It doesn’t matter if Leonard turns it into an exciting brawl — if he loses, he’s on extremely thin ice, and we may not see him back again.
#2. Erick Silva might be a future superstar.
The 27-year-old Team Nogueira product’s UFC career has lasted just 69 seconds. First, he ran through Luis Ramos in 40 seconds at UFC 134, then he ran through Carlo Prater in 29 seconds at UFC 142, although the fight left Silva with a controversial DQ loss. His opponent on the UFC on FX 3 main card, Charlie Brenneman, represents a big step up in competition, but if Silva can pull it off, he’ll earn the kind of “future of the welterweight division” hype currently reserved for Rory MacDonald. Keep your eye on him.
#3. Demetrious Johnson figured out how to cut weight.
Mighty Mouse’s first meeting with Ian McCall in March ended in a three-round draw, and look, it’s not like he’s making excuses here, but Johnson did tell MMA Junkie that he ran out of energy in the third round because of a poorly-designed diet that had him cut out carbs entirely: “When I was going down to 125 (pounds), I didn’t want to jump on the scale and be [announced], ‘Demetrious Johnson, ladies and gentlemen!,’ and Joe Rogan’s like, ’128!’…When it came time for me to rehydrate, I didn’t have any carbs because if you take something out of your body for eight weeks and you try to put it back into your body for like one night, to fight, your body is going to go into shock. You’re not going to perform well.”
Though McCall was making his UFC debut that night, he was no stranger to the 125-pound division thanks to his 3-0 stretch in Tachi Palace Fights last year. Unfortunately, Johnson was a flyweight rookie, and made some rookie mistakes. Now that he has a better sense of what’s required to make 125 and feel strong the next day, we might see an even more ferocious Mouse in the cage tomorrow — and this time, he’s definitely not going to want to leave it in the hands of the judges.
#4: Mike Pierce‘s Brazilian-bashing routine might come back to bite him in the ass.
After Pierce’s main card fight with fellow welterweight Carlos Eduardo Rocha was booked, Pierce got on Twitter to drop some rather unwarranted hate: ”WANTED: no work ethic, no cardio, terrible striking and limited ground game. Brazilians, please send fight applications to Joe Silva.“ Now, he’s rolling directly into American Top Team territory making cracks about Thiago Alves and fast food. That kind of near-suicidal dissing of Brazilian fighters has usually been the realm of Chael Sonnen, but Pierce wants to get in on the action too, apparently.
And it’s not because he’s racist. It’s worse — it’s because he’s already looking past Rocha and angling for a future fight against Alves. And that’s a mistake, because Rocha is a tough bastard, and now it’s personal. If Pierce isn’t taking this fight seriously, he could find himself down two fights in a row on Saturday morning, and where he goes from there is anybody’s guess. For the record, Brazilians are intelligent and upstanding people who have Internet access, never feed carrots to buses, and know how to treat a lady.
