I try to be conservative and not make judgmental statements that might piss anybody off, right?
However, I feel strongly about the sport of MMA and the spirit of martial arts.
Soa “The Hulk” Palelei said this on Twitter after his fight with BigFoot in the UFC and I’m going to keep quoting it. “Athletes, not enemies.”
When you are in a street fight or in a war, you try to injure, hurt, or kill the other person. When you’re in a ring or cage doing a sport, it’s an athletic competition. Your goal is to WIN, not injure. Your goal is to make the other person GIVE UP, not cripple him or her. If you knock the guy into unconsciousness, fine. If you yank really hard on the armbar to break through his or her defense and their elbow gets broken by accident, well, bad things happen. But to hold onto a submission when you are in complete control and continue to crank it even when the person taps and the ref tells you to stop, is unacceptable, dishonorable, and shameful. I feel very strongly so I’m going to say that very bluntly.
Joe Lauzon did a video where he counted miliseconds and watched video on how long it took for Palhares to let go of submissions. Check it out here.https://www.facebook.com/joelauzon/videos/10153477783403570/?pnref=story Very interesting!
Not only did he just extra crank the sub, but Rousimar Palhares fouled Jake Shields with eye gouges! That’s illegal. And kind of horrible. Imagine you’re an athlete trying to do your sport and someone is jabbing you in the eyes with their finger nails. You could, uh, go blind? Have your cornea cut up? Not be able to fight ever again? Or maybe you’re walking down the street and some random dude sticks a finger dagger in your eye and grabs your wallet and runs. and you go blind in that eye. You’d wanna catch that guy and sue him, right?
I believe that a true master has the ability to control his or her technique so that he or she can bring them to the point of injury WITHOUT injury. Anyone can snap someone’s arm if shown how on the first day! It takes years to develop skill and grace to do submission grappling or and jiu-jitsu. If I armbared someone and I ripped out their elbow ligaments, I’d feel like I failed myself.
Well, that’s me. The other person also has to tap, and the attacker should be fully aware that the guy is about to break. SO let’s say you attack, the other guy taps, you let go, the ref comes over, and the attackee is like, “Oh I didn’t tap!” and the ref says, “Fight!” wtf, right?
Okay, so fighters are supposed to continue until the ref stops them. So here’s a concept: HOLD the submission where it is . You don’t have to crank it MORE. It’s not like they’re wiggling around. Usually when a submission is put on, people are still and frozen because they are done trying to wiggle.
First Palhares said he wasn’t a dirty fighter, but in the past, his manager (who has to speak for him now?) says that he zones out and doesn’t know what he’s doing and doesn’t realize what he’s doing. Wtf is that? Then get the hell out of the competition area if you can’t control your body.
A black belt should be the safest person to roll with since they should have the most ability to control bodies and submission manipulation.
I’m glad WSOF stripped his title and banned him.
/end rant