Tag: UFC 178

Upon further review, perhaps Yoel Romero isn’t as big a jerk as first thought.

Our initial collective reaction to Romero’s controversial win over Tim Kennedy at Saturday’s UFC 178 was to sharpen up the pitchforks and double-check our stock of torches.

At first blush, it sure looked like Romero and his corner conspired to give the fighter an extra half-minute to recover from a second round where he was saved by the bell from a certain knockout. When Romero stormed out and turned the tables on Kennedy in the third—knocking him out 38 seconds into the final stanza—it seemed pretty sensible to cry foul.

Since then, to paraphrase the younger of the two Jeffery Lebowskis, a lot of new (stuff) has come to light. We’ve been over and over the unfortunately named “Stool Gate” controversy ad nauseam and at this point, there appears to be only one option to clear it all up:

Let’s do it again, brother.

By now, we’ve heard about the extra Vaseline applied to Romero’s face by UFC cut man Brad Tate. We’ve heard about the language barrier between referee John McCarthy and corner man Paulino Hernandez, seen the GIF of Kennedy briefly grabbing Romero’s glove in order to land his best shots to close out the second round and witnessed Romero’s low blow (via punch, of all things) in the first.

We’ve heard both Kennedy’s complaints and Romero head coach Ricardo Liborio pull a Scott Coker and claim he didn’t really see what happened. We’ve also heard Nevada State Athletic Commission Chairman Francisco Aguilar tell Bleacher Report there likely isn’t cause to overturn Romero’s victory.

“It was a bunch of things all happening at once,” Aguilar said. “Our inspector had to get the grease off his face. Our inspector who was supposed to get the stool out didn‘t get it out in time.”

So, after all that rigmarole, who’s to blame here?

Aguilar’s own words make this situation sound less like Romero’s fault and more like an administrative error. Certainly, either McCarthy or another NSAC official should’ve yanked that stool out from under the fighter’s backside while they attempted to get the excess Vaseline off his face. Vaseline that was only there because a UFC cut man smeared it there.

It’s also difficult to know how our immediate reaction to these events might have been different had we experienced them without a UFC broadcaster talking over the action. As it aired lived on pay-per-view, color commentator Joe Rogan appeared to place the blame squarely on Romero’s corner.

“Romero’s corner is purposefully, slowly walking out (of the cage),” Rogan said. “They still have the stool in there! What are they doing? He’s still sitting on the stool. This is ridiculous! Why isn’t he standing up? Why don’t they get that stool out of there? No, he’s not done, but what they’re doing is they saved him some time. They gave him an extra 15-20 seconds (to recover).”

Hard to blame Rogan either. Interpreting the action in the cage and explaining it for the folks at home is his job, after all. But as we all watched the PPV for the first time, it was hard to grasp the nuance of the interaction between McCarthy, the NSAC official and Romero’s corner. As a result, we thrust a lot of criticism at Romero, when perhaps he didn’t deserve it. At least not all of it.

Amid all the chaos, opinion and information, however, one thing is clear: Both fighters got jobbed here.

Kennedy appeared on the verge of victory at the end of the second stanza and then his opponent was given extra time to recover. Less than two minutes later, he ended up the loser of an important middleweight contender bout.

For Romero, the ensuing hullabaloo has robbed him of his rightful place among the top-tier 185-pound title challengers. Instead of debating what and who is next for him, we’re left trying to parse who’s to blame for his victory. That’s sort of an unenviable position.

Given that their first 10-plus minutes together were a wild, back-and-forth time, I’m not sure anyone would complain about getting a second opportunity to watch Kennedy and Romero fight. Especially now that Chris Weidman’s title defense against Vitor Belfort has been pushed back to February—and with Jacare Souza potentially next up. It’s not like the middleweight division is pressed for time, anyway.

We’re lucky that in this sport there is typically an easy solution for controversy, hurt feelings and argument: Just have them fight again.

Maybe the second time around we’ll get some better answers.

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Donald Cerrone closed out his UFC 178 weekend on a fairly cryptic note.

After a days-long extravaganza of wakeboarding, leg-kicking and rib-splitting, Cerrone notched an important unanimous-decision win over Eddie Alvarez on Saturday—but couldn’t leave Las Vegas without teasing us a little bit.

On Monday, the generally open-book fighter posted a tweet so ambiguous we assumed it had to be the prelude to yet another bout announcement. On Tuesday, Cerrone confirmed our suspicions, but only while revealing the rug had already been yanked out from under his boots.

Long story short, we don’t yet know when or against whom, but it’s a good bet we’re all going to get a little bit more Cowboy in our lives before the end of the year.

Hard to complain about that.

Cerrone’s victory over Alvarez pushed his 2014 record to 4-0 and his overall UFC mark to a surprisingly stout 12-3 since coming over from the WEC four years ago. With only three months until New Years, it would take some high-wire theatrics to get Cowboy to the half-dozen fights he wanted this year, but if he falls short, it won’t be by much.

He’s currently No. 4 on the UFC’s official lightweight rankings, and his five straight wins give him a longer streak of victories than anybody else in the Top Five besides the undefeated Khabib Nurmagomedov (who, lest we forget, is 22-0. 22-0!). And yeah, that includes champion Anthony Pettis.

All those victories—made possible by Cerrone’s self-imposed, hard-charging schedule—have put considerable distance between the 31-year-old Colorado native and a 2013 in which he went 1-2. Each time out these days, he looks less like a career gatekeeper and more like a full-fledged title contender in MMA’s most competitive weight class.

If Cerrone wins one more bout before the end of the year against a Top 15 opponent—think Myles Jury, Josh Thomson or Michael Johnson, perhaps—it’ll be hard to deny that he’s ready for a chance at the title.

Not that he appears to give a damn.

At this point, the biggest threat to Cerrone’s contender status might be in own inability to sit still. While injuries to Pettis put the 155-pound championship on ice during the last 13 months, Cerrone made the Octagon his own personal playground. Including his win over Evan Dunham on Nov 16, 2013, he’s had five fights in 293 days.

Even considering the UFC’s new accelerated live event schedule, that’s a lot.

Hard to blame him, either, considering the financials. Saturday’s win over Alvarez was the first time during his ongoing win streak that Cerrone was denied one of the fight company’s lucrative performance-based bonuses—and he still made a reported $126,000 for his trouble. All told, that adds up to an estimated $762,000 in earnings in less than a year including guarantees, win bonuses and performance extras.

Cerrone hasn’t shied away from the hard truth that his salary barely keeps up with his lifestyle, but there’s also a fair amount of showmanship in his work rate. He appears to fight as much for fun as from need, but certainly isn’t oblivious to the fact that his longstanding “anyone, anytime” mantra has made him very popular with fans.

It has also made him very marketable, as his Budweiser sponsorship and current managerial relationship with NASCAR driver Kevin Harvick can attest.

Cerrone simply won’t—or maybe can’t—wait for Pettis and current No. 1 contender Gilbert Melendez to settle their differences near the end of the year. Instead, he’ll just fight and fight and fight.

The strategy has worked wonders so far, and Cerrone looked like the best possible versions of himself in his last two bouts. In July, he kickboxed circles around Jim Miller before knocking him out in the second round. On Saturday, he spoiled Alvarez’s long-awaited UFC debut with a steady diet of knees to the midsection and kicks to the legs.

But the lightweight division is a hornets’ nest of tough opposition, and it feels like anyone who insists on competing as much as Cerrone does is pressing his luck. He’s a self-admitted slow starter and was blown out of the water in recent defeats against offensive-minded strikers like Pettis and Nate Diaz. He also struggled in a loss to Rafael dos Anjos in August of 2013.

If he keeps up this torrid pace, eventually the weight class is going to jump up and bite him again. It’s not unthinkable that he might even fight his way right out of title contention before the championship carousel has a place for him.

Maybe that doesn’t concern Cerrone. Maybe he’s just here for the adrenaline rush, the competition and, of course, to fund his wakeboarding habit. But he’s worked exceedingly hard over the past year and finally appears on the verge of separating himself from the 155-pound division’s hefty pack of also-rans.

It’d be a shame to see all that progress thrown into a tailspin because he feels compelled to fight five or six times in a calendar turn.

It’s safe to say we’re all rooting for him. At this point we know full well that success (or failure) will happen only on the Cowboy’s own terms.

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