When Gray Maynard (11-1-1 MMA, 9-1-1 UFC) squared off with Clay Guida (29-13 MMA, 9-7 UFC) at UFC on FX 4 Friday night, fans expected one of the hardest-hitting battles the lightweight division could ever offer.What the MMA world got was Guida running …
When Gray Maynard (11-1-1 MMA, 9-1-1 UFC) squared off with Clay Guida (29-13 MMA, 9-7 UFC) at UFC on FX 4 Friday night, fans expected one of the hardest-hitting battles the lightweight division could ever offer.
What the MMA world got was Guida running from Maynard for five rounds.
Maynard and Guida are known for their ability and willingness to stand in the pocket of a fight and exchange shots. Instead of watching the ultimate battle of striking, the masses were forced to watch The Carpenter run around the Octagon like the chicken in Rocky.
Except in this case, the fans were the Kentucky fried idiots.
This sorry excuse for a main event was an absolute travesty, and UFC president Dana White had every right to come out after the fight and express his distaste for Guida’s fight approach.
White told MMAjunkie.com about the fight and how Guida and his team’s game plan ruined the main event:
The fight sucked. I don’t know how to expand on it anymore…I don’t think that was a split decision at all. I think Gray Maynard won that fight easily. Nobody can win or lose a fight when the guy is running around in circles. He was literally running. I had some guys who are fans on Twitter saying, ‘Great footwork.’ This isn’t (expletive) ‘Dancing With the Stars.’ You can’t win a fight by running around in circles – that’s not how fights are won.
While White is being his normal brash self and rubbing people the wrong way, everything he says is completely true. The fight card was thin already, but having the main event feature a fan favorite like Guida running away from the fight was terrible publicity.
If UFC is trying to grow its mass appeal via its affiliation with FOX Sports, they need to ensure they are putting on more entertaining events; just like the wildly successful all-heavyweight card the company did at UFC 146.
It is clear that White trusted Maynard and Guida to deliver on that kind of excitement for this Friday main event, but the fact that main event was as bad as it was only puts more pressure and stress on the UFC president’s head.
The UFC is a company first and foremost, and it’s White’s job to make it great. Not only does he have the right to question Guida’s style, he has the power to punish him for embarrassing him.
Let’s see how long the MMA veteran lasts in the UFC after this incident.
Although this weekend had important fights in the lightweight, middleweight and heavyweight divisions, it was a busy weekend for the boys at 145 pounds.On Friday night, top title contender Hatsu Hioki was mysteriously relegated to the Fuel TV prelimina…
Although this weekend had important fights in the lightweight, middleweight and heavyweight divisions, it was a busy weekend for the boys at 145 pounds.
On Friday night, top title contender Hatsu Hioki was mysteriously relegated to the Fuel TV preliminaries against highlight-creator Ricardo Lamas. In any event, it was the most important fight within the division this weekend as Hioki was the No. 2 ranked featherweight in the world heading into the contest.
In other important contests, Ultimate Fighter Ross Pearson took on WEC standout Cub Swanson, TUF: Brazil crowned a featherweight winner, and top prospects Yuri Alcantara and Hacran Dias looked to leave their stamp on the UFC.
All in all, nine featherweight fights took place this weekend, and the competitors showed us why the division is so exciting. With some wiggle room at the bottom, many of the fighters this weekend had an opportunity to make a case for themselves in the rankings.
A win is a win when it comes to mixed martial arts, but when it happens in the kind of fight that Gray Maynard had with Clay Guida in the main event of UFC on FX 4 on Friday night, it just doesn’t feel quite as sweet.After coming off the first los…
A win is a win when it comes to mixed martial arts, but when it happens in the kind of fight that Gray Maynard had with Clay Guida in the main event of UFC on FX 4 on Friday night, it just doesn’t feel quite as sweet.
After coming off the first loss of his career in 2011 against Frankie Edgar, Maynard was looking to assert himself back in the top of the UFC’s 155-pound division with a win over a fellow top contender. Maynard, who has been criticized in the past by some for his grinding wrestling style, was put up against one of the UFC’s most active and entertaining lightweights, Clay Guida.
On paper, the fight looked like it’d be a great one as Guida’s excellent takedown defense would make it tough for Maynard to bring the fight to the ground, thus resulting in what many believed would be a spirited brawl. Maynard himself even thought that’d be the case.
“I was getting flustered, of course,” Maynard told UFC on Fuel TV’s Ariel Helwani. “I thought it was going to be a brawl.”
The frustration was evident as he chased Guida around the cage, even flipping the bird at him and mouthing obscenities at the Team Jackson fighter.
“He was all over the place,” he said. “He had a plan, but you’ve got to change that up a little bit. You can’t hit and then move all the way across [the cage].”
“It’s a fight, you know?”
Guida’s style in the fight couldn’t have been predicted by anyone and that might have played a part in why referee Dan Miragliotta took so long before finally opting to warn Guida for literally running away in the fifth round.
While others have commented a point should have been taken from Guida for the timidity he showed throughout the fight, with a win now under his belt, Maynard isn’t ready to suggest that Miragliotta made a bad decision.
“That would’ve been nice for me, but I’m not trying to tell people how to do their jobs. I’m just trying to do my job,” he said.
With a UFC record of 9-1-1, Maynard is ready to get back into title contention.
“I was hungry for this fight. I’m hungry for the belt,” he said. “An [Frankie] Edgar fight is always good, but the whole goal is the belt and the top of the world.”
Last night’s UFC on FX 4 event was in many ways a microcosm of life. There were ups, there were downs, we laughed, we cried, we got kind of pissed off a couple of times.
Last night’s UFC on FX 4 event was in many ways a microcosm of life. There were ups, there were downs, we laughed, we cried, we got kind of pissed off a couple of times at the end, but overall we left it with no regrets…..mostly because it was free….
CLAY GUIDA VS GRAY MAYNARD
The main event found, Gray “The Bully” Maynard with a questionable decision victory over the man simply known as “The Carpenter,” No, I’m just kidding we know his name it’s Clay Guida…
Right, so by questionable I really mean bullsh*t. Essentially we had a very technical if unorthodox lesson in stick and move style boxing from the Greg Jackson pupil while The Bully went with a different game plan consisting mostly of heavily plodding forward while wildly missing with big 1-2’s. Guida defended his opponent’s takedown attempts in brilliant fashion and in this cocky sh*t’s opinion would have had a nearly perfect performance if he hadn’t straight up run away from his opponent on at least two different occasions.
Don’t get me wrong, I WOULD RUN AWAY FROM GRAY MAYNARD, but then again I’m not a professional badass like the Carpenter. We’ve all seen Guida’s previous performances, and no one with an ounce of sense can doubt his mettle, but this latest foray into the octagon reeks of the same “running man” stench that drove the Condit-Diaz affair.
Aside from being a little boring at times, Guida’s erratic style garnered him a series of impressive combinations that culminated with a beautiful head kick to Maynard’s face that stood his @ss straight up!!
Even though I believe Guida’s clear control of the standup and superb takedown defense outweighed his lapses in technical defense (he ran like a p#ssy twice) and should have been enough to take the decision, the most exciting moment of the fight came towards the later rounds. You should really go youtube it, but essentially a very frustrated Maynard threw caution to the wind, dropped his hands and walked forward while screaming at Guida to fight, in the process eating several shots from the Carpenter all in an attempt to get his foe to engage….like a boss. This f*cking guy is crazier than your ex-girlfriend.
When all was said and done, the judges felt that Gray’s frustration at not being able to hit his opponent was enough to deserve a unanimous decision. I say make them fight again!!!
SAM STOUT VS SPENCER FISHER
In this bout we see the conclusion of a trilogy of brutal engagements between Sam “Hands of Stone” Stout, and the ever-dangerous, Spencer “The King” Fisher. This fight went much the same way as their last two fights, with both men beating the sh*t out of each other bell to bell.
For those who aren’t familiar, Stout had his UFC debut against, “The King” Fisher back in 2006, showing great heart and determination in taking a judges’ split decision. Fast forward almost a year and the rematch showed us very good standup from Fisher, who mainly used vicious boxing to carry him to a unanimous judges’ decision.
At one apiece, each man undoubtedly came ready to go all-out in the cage, and as foreshadowed by their previous clashes, the men delivered another thrilling three round war. Fisher showed the superior short boxing from the inside, employing it very successfully to bust “Hands of Stone” the f*ck up! It looked to be a repeat performance for “The King,” until Stout showcased his evolution as a mixed martial artist—from young rising prospect to veteran octagon warrior. Midway through the fight, Stout surprisingly started scoring with takedowns, allowing him to open up-with some ground-and-pound in the form of repeated short elbows to the head and arms of Fisher.
The final frame saw both men busted up and swinging until the very last seconds of the duel. While one could argue that Stout took more damage at the hands of Fisher, the takedowns as well as the limited, yet effective ground-and-pound swayed the judges in favor of Stout winning him both the battle and the war in this their third and final confrontation. To be honest I would watch these guys fight over and over again, like Nam Phan and Leonard Garcia, or Shogun and Hendo…What do you b*tches think?
BRIAN EBERSOLE VS TJ WALDBURGER
The eternal Brian Ebersole faced off against the up-and-coming TJ Waldburger in a three round battle which concluded with an Ebersole decision victory. If you were to look at their records you might not be very surprised by the outcome of the fight. On paper, Ebersole is the clear favorite. Let’s break it down a little.
Take Ebersole’s record going into this fight: 49-14-1-1. That’s forty-nine wins, and only fourteen losses in over sixty professional fights. It’s safe to say that Ebersole fits the mold for a very particular breed of pro badass, the mixed martial artist that has been around forever, fought everybody, seen EVERYTHING, and is damn near impossible to finish at this point. I call this rare breed, “The Eternals”
If you were to look at Waldburger’s resume, you might think the same thing my 16 year old brother thought when he mentioned the possibility that the UFC was feeding him to Ebersole as they sometimes do when a high profile fighter loses a bout and needs a tune-up fight. With a 15-7 pro record and a 3-1 UFC record, what my brother said made sense. The only thing odd thing was that Brian Ebersole has been on a tear going through some very high level ass-kickers in the process. Wins over fellow eternals, Chris Lytle (31-18-5), and Dennis Hallman (51-14-2-1) stood out in particular. With a 3-0 UFC record and riding a ten fight win streak Ebersole did not fit the profile for a guy needing a tune up fight.
Well one thing became readily apparent as soon as the contest began, TJ Waldburger is one bad hombre. The guy who turned pro at seventeen years old dropped the eternal with a heavy counter punch early on which is ironic considering that Ebersole’s signature arrow shaved into his chest hair is there as a testament to the fact that no one has knocked him out in over sixty fights. It also serves as a tongue-in-cheek reminder to his opponents as to where to direct their violence.
Waldburger then pounced on the stunned Ebersole putting him in several deep submission attempts that the eternal countered beautifully showing exactly how hard it can be to choke out that kind of high level grappler. Eventually Ebersole managed to reverse his situation into a top position where he rained down heavy ground and pound to a very active and still dangerous but slowly fading Waldburger. Throw in some weird ass pseudo-capoeira kick on Ebersole’s behalf and you pretty much had the same thing all the way to the end of the fight, where an Ebersole fully recovered from his near disastrous knockdown in round one raised his arms in victory (his 50th professional MMA victory) as a f*cked up TJ Waldburger took his second loss in the octagon.
CUB SWANSON VS ROSS PEARSON
Ladies and gentlemen, this one was a barnburner. The Jackson’s Mixed Martial Arts representative, Cub Swanson, showed off a very diverse and dynamic striking style as he claimed his second consecutive knockout, this time with less than a minute left in the second round and simultaneously earning Knockout of the Night.
Toward the end of the first round, his opponent Ross Pearson, had some success throwing combinations inside, exploiting the fact that midway through Swanson for some reason reverted to throwing single power strikes.
At one point Swanson through an absolutely beautiful capoeira kick—you should DEFINITELY YOUTUBE THIS ONE— and he landed it straight to dude’s f*ckin NECK. What’s even crazier than that you ask? Pearson just ate it and followed up with some tasty ground-and-pound.
Ultimately, a roughed up Cub Swanson would get to his feet and resume the ass kicking. Pearson had no answer for the speed, accuracy and unpredictability of Swanson’s flying through the air at you with strikes type standup assault.
The end came quickly when Pearson masterfully caught one of Swanson’s kicks, proceeded to drive through, pushing his opponent back towards the opposite cage. His attempts to finish the takedown earned him two hard right hands from Swanson forcing the tough Brit to drop the leg and a follow up hook floored him. A merciful referee stoppage saved him as Swanson began to swarm with punches.
With two consecutive knockout victories, both of which came in thrilling fashion, Cub Swanson is quickly becoming a fan favorite. For the audience’s sake, we can only hope Jay Silva keeps giving him strikers after the healthy diet of grapplers he was fed for so long. With any luck he’ll keep getting matches where he can show off his superb striking game for our viewing pleasure. Buahaha haha!!!!
WRAP-UP
In conclusion, DON’T FORGET TO WATCH UFC 147 TONIGHT!! Live fights from Brazil, will pit headliners, Wanderlei “The Axe Murderer “Silva, and former UFC Middleweight Champion Rich “Ace” Franklin against one another in their second encounter. It should be pretty violent so round up your crew, hit up the nearest bar, get drunk and watch these guys beat the hell out of each other! If you’re lucky you might even get laid after….but knowing you, probably not. I’ll try to have another recap on tonight’s fights for you tomorrow! Later mother*ckas!!
If the fans watching UFC on FX weren’t vocal enough about the lack of action in Friday night’s main event between Clay Guida and Gray Maynard, UFC President Dana White added an emphatic exclamation point on their frustration after the event.In an inter…
If the fans watching UFC on FX weren’t vocal enough about the lack of action in Friday night’s main event between Clay Guida and Gray Maynard, UFC President Dana White added an emphatic exclamation point on their frustration after the event.
In an interview with Fuel TV’s Ariel Helwani, White vocalized his disappointment with Guida’s performance.
“I would’ve bet anything that fight would’ve been entertaining,” White said.
Fans were surprised to see a new style from the typically highly aggressive Guida, who normally utilizes in-your-face movement to wear down his opponents and beat them in exciting fashion.
Instead, the in-your-face style looked more like a track-and-field competition as Maynard chased Guida around the cage for the better part of 25 minutes, practically begging him to engage.
“He was literally running, swinging at Clay Guida, trying to hit him,” White said. “That’s not a fight.”
Since Guida moved to the Greg Jackson gym, we have slowly seen him turn from being a wildman in the cage to a much more patient, gameplan-based fighter. While he’s still capable of pouring on the pressure and keeping his opponents off balance, Friday night’s main event went beyond that and into the territory of avoiding exchanges.
“Some goof put it in his head that running around in circles might win him the fight, and they were dead wrong,” White said. “It was a blowout by Gray Maynard.”
Referee Dan Miragliotta did eventually warn Guida about running away and even threatened to take a point if he did it again.
White agreed with that decision, but noted that he thought that it should’ve come earlier in the fight.
“If only one guy is willing to fight, you can’t have a fight,” White said, referring to Guida’s timid style in the cage.
In the end, Maynard was given the decision, and although White was happy with the outcome on the scorecards, he was still frustrated with what the main event said about the card as a whole.
“This was not the way that I wanted to return to Atlantic City,” he said.
The UFC has a very clear rule against running in a fight: the passivity rule. As posted on the UFC website, here it is: “Timidity, including, without limitation, avoiding contact with an opponent, intentionally or consistently dropping th…
The UFC has a very clear rule against running in a fight: the passivity rule. As posted on the UFC website, here it is: “Timidity, including, without limitation, avoiding contact with an opponent, intentionally or consistently dropping the mouthpiece or faking an injury.” This is exactly what Clay Guida did for almost the entire 25 minutes of scheduled action last night in Atlantic City.
The referee, Dan Miragliotta, allowed Guida to avoid contact with Gray Maynard until there was only a minute and fifty-three seconds remaining in the five-round bout. He then decided to issue a flaccid warning: a warning that would have been pertinent had it been issued fifteen minutes sooner.
Sport is about trying to score more points than your opponent in order to win; sport is not about trying to manipulate the rules to win via not-scoring.
Basketball implemented shot clocks for this very purpose; football has timeouts, the two minute warning and a shot clock; hockey has the icing rule and penalties for intentionally shooting the puck over the glass. These rules work to solve the problem of athletes holding on to a lead, stalling and no longer actively seeking to fulfill the intent of the game.
When Clay Guida decided to turn away from his opponent and sprint, he was not utilizing footwork. He was avoiding contact. The golden rule of footwork is “Don’t cross your feet.” Crossing one’s feet leaves one out of position to fight, throw and take strikes.
Clay often crossed his feet in order to turn and run once Gray managed to close him down and cut him off. The punches that Clay was throwing were well off their mark and were intended more to keep Maynard from entering range than to actually hit him. He was in violation of this rule several times throughout the fight but particularly in rounds 2,3,4 and 5. According to Fightmetric stats, Guida landed 49 of 327 total strikes.(To put these numbers in perspective, Edgar landed 95 and Maynard landed 71 at UFC 125.)
Gray did his part. He cut off angles and pressed the action. When he finally managed to have “The Carpenter” cut off and pressed against the cage, Guida turned and ran.
The lone highlight of the bout was when “The Bully” created a Ricardo Mayorga moment in the forth round. Gray dropped his hands and encouraged Clay to take free shots. He ate them cleanly and even turned that into a near-submission via guillotine. Well done, Maynard.
While Clay was running, for some unusual reason, commentators (Jon Anik and Kenny Florian) were praising Clay for his impressive footwork and elusive head movement. Strangely, in the fifth round, Clay was praised for burning up the clock. They did not have one disparaging thing to say about his tactics nor about the quality of the fight being languished as a result. They even had the audacity to thank God and Dana White for making this a five round bout.
What was good about that fight being five rounds? The commentators’ job is to call the fight and they should be more honest with their audience—and give their audience’s fight I.Q. more credit—but the onus is on the referees to do their job: implement the already present tools. Commentators should only call the action, not create it. When the fighters do not fight, that is the job of the person in stripes.
Credit Dana White for saying: ” I think Gray Maynard won that fight easily. Nobody can win or lose a fight when the guy is running around in circles. He was literally running. I had some guys who are fans on Twitter saying “Great footwork.” This isn’t f**kin dancing with the stars. You can’t win a fight by running around in circles—that’s not how fights are won.”
The truth is, the fight was a debacle and not a legitimate main even. Dana is absolutely right and his comments help create a sports culture that is conducive to entertainment and promotes the growth of the sport.
However, where Dana and I disagree is on his comment about Dan’s warning: ” “That’s what they’re supposed to do.” I would suggest that referees should do more than that. That is what they should do when it commences and not when the fight is virtually over (1:50 remaining) and the damage has already been done. I feel Dana should have higher expectations of the referees especially considering the ramifications on the integrity of the sport.
Some might attempt to mitigate the lousiness—as is often Dana’s mantra—by saying it was free. The last time I checked my cable bill, I pay for that channel. Yet, the finger cannot be pointed at White’s direction, and hopefully his words ring out to others known for employing this same strategy.
Should blame be placed at the feet of Guida—literally and figuratively—and those of his coach, Greg Jackson? Absolutely. The Jackson camp is notorious for having their fighters utilize this exact blueprint to win either controversial or lackluster decisions. (See Carlos Condit-Nick Diaz or any of G.S.P.’s last fights.) However, they are not unilaterally culpable.
The truth is, the system already has a built in mechanism to counter this strategy: the timidity rule. It is incumbent upon the referee to take a point from the fighter engaging in passivity.The referee’s failure to do so creates this opportunity for manipulation. Consider that Maynard was a single round on one judge’s card from losing the split-decision that he won.
Consider the safety of residents who live in a neighborhood where the police never arrest anyone, or the classroom environment of a teacher who never issues detention. The same principle follows for the health of a sport in which a referee never holds athletes accountable to the rules. This is often seen in hockey and basketball games when the play’s chippiness gets out of control and players get hurt.
Dan has done this before. Prior to this, what was the worst main event in the history of the UFC? If you chose UFC 112 (Silva v Maia), we are on the same page.
Miragliotta enacted the same method. He allowed Anderson to dance, run and clown until time had virtually expired and then issued a warning against inactivity. No point deduction, just a warning. Silva still did not engage and the fight ended without any points being taken away. However, he should have issued a warning sooner—not with 50 seconds remaining—and followed through on it.
Warning someone for a foul right at the end of the fight after allowing them to continuously commit the same infraction is an empty gesture. It serves to placate restless and frustrated fans and gives the false impression of doing one’s job without having to stand behind any definitive action. It is perfunctory. It is akin to “having enough” and threatening to take the screaming impudent kids out of the restaurant and straight home- conveniently after dessert is over and the bill is on the way.
For the record, according to Fightmetric, Silva landed eight total strikes in the fifth round and eleven in the fourth. For those who know the fight, you will recall him actually running behind Miragliotta and using the referee as a shield: Miragliotta found this amusing and laughed. Dan was complicit in the Guida and Silva bouts, allowing the fighters to break the rules and creating a fight that never should have been exhibited before a paying crowd nor a viewing audience.
Truthfully, this scenario is better than one at the opposite end of the spectrum. Referees who determine the outcome of a fight by capriciously deducting points is a far more bleak paradigm. Yes, the fighters should determine who the winner is- not the referee.
The athletes should be the main focal point of an outcome. However, the officials are tasked with the duty of ensuring the rules are followed. When one participant is not affording the other competitor an opportunity to compete, the referee is compelled to do his job.
Warnings should be issued once a fighter’s game-plan is revealed to be avoiding contact. These warnings should be supported by point reductions.
Not considering five round fights, what was the worst example of timidity in any combat fight…ever? Surpassing even the Hopkins-Hakkar match (boxing), the worst example of passivity—if it was not Maia-Silva—has to be Khalib Starnes-Nate Quarry at UFC 83. Who was the referee for that fight? How many points did he deduct? Zero. He never even gave an official warning for a point reduction.
I think the matchmakers did a good job and we should have expected a great main event at UFC on FX 4. Dana also said the right things and voiced the general sentiment of most fans. The judges delivered by not awarding the running session as a “W” to the violator. Yet, the worst offender of all was the referee. He is there to do a job and not be a fan.
Being a referee is very difficult and I praise-and never fault- a referee who chooses fighter-safety first. However, timidity is an easy call to make. Hopefully, referees will simply do their job in the future.
When Gray Maynard (11-1-1 MMA, 9-1-1 UFC) squared off with Clay Guida (29-13 MMA, 9-7 UFC) at UFC on FX 4 Friday night, fans expected one of the hardest-hitting battles the lightweight division could ever offer.
