Josh Koscheck

In the post-fight medical light of Josh Koscheck’s potentially career-ending broken orbital bone, there have been a few grumblings and mumblings across the internets that Joe Rogan was irresponsible to rail against the doctor potentially stopping the fight. (“Get out of there, Kris Kringle.”) And in a perfect world they have a strong point. A ringside doctor should have the freedom to stop a fight without pressure from a glowering referee (e.g. “Too much Herb” Dean) or a commentator insulting - even amusingly - his snow-white facial hair.

However, the point rests on the assumption that the doctor is qualified to make such a decision. This is not a perfect world; it’s the NSAC’s world and patronage is its game.

Rogan must have taken one look at “that Kris Kringle dude” and thought, “Oh shit, here we go again.” Not one week earlier Joe had let blast a stem-winding rant against the NSAC’s incompetence. It was the most important one since Dana’s do-you-want-to-be-a-fucking-fighter? When Rogan called out Keith Kizer by name, you could almost hear Goldberg’s intake of breath. As we all know from Big John’s case, criticizing the NSAC is a banish-able offense.

But unlike Big John, who had left the UFC and thus become persona non grata, Rogan is a friend of Dana, and FoDs can do no wrong. This allows him to be the most honest guy in MMA today. Also, unlike everyone else in the organization, he was famous before the UFC blew up and could easily get a better paying gig watching morons eat worms.

But it’s not his bracing, stand-up-comedian bullshit-calling, nor his passion for explaining the intricacies of the ground game, that make me a Joe Rogan nuthugger. It was what happened when I met him.

Last year, I was at Tuff-N-Uff’s “Tuff Girls,” the first all-women’s amateur MMA card. It was held the night before UFC 100. That weekend Vegas was MMA insane. 7,000 fans attended the weigh-ins. I couldn’t even get into the Expo it was so full. In all this frenzy, Joe Rogan along with one of the TapouT guys (Screech?—I can never remember which clown is which) walked into The Orleans’ auditorium and sat in the front row.

I figured he was making an appearance and would soon leave. But he sat there for fight after fight. And I must say, even though I fully support WMMA, most of the matches were difficult to watch—barely above catfight level. Even my wife, who is all for women breaking into  male-dominated worlds, said to me, “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

As the event wore on, it struck me: Joe Rogan could be at any number of crazy Vegas club parties filled with smoking hot groupies, free drinks, and MMA legends. And yet here he was spending the biggest Friday evening in MMA history at this little show.

I went over to the Tuff-N-Uff promoter, Jeff Meyer, and asked him to introduce us.

“You don’t need an introduction,” he said. “Joe’s an open guy. He’ll talk to anyone.”

With some trepidation, I went over and introduced myself. Sure enough his smile was big and he moved over to offer me a seat.

“So what do you think of the fights?” I asked.

“I’m a big fan of women’s MMA,” he said. “But I like the more technical fighters, like Gina Carano. Some of these girls…it just seems like they need a hug.”

Dana White loves the UFC. Joe Rogan loves MMA.

And that’s why I love me some Joe Rogan.

(Matthew Polly is the author of two books, one so amazing and exclusive you have to travel into the future to buy it. He contributes to Fightlinker because we have photographs. Dirty, secret photographs.)

For all my bitching about GSP suffering from a serious case of flaccid finishing skills, the truth is he did kinda take out Koscheck: ESPN confirms that egg under Koscheck's eye from round 2 onwards was a broken orbital bone.

UFC welterweight contender Josh Koscheck suffered a broken orbital bone during the first round of his championship fight versus Georges St. Pierre (21-2) Saturday night in Montreal, a source told ESPN.com.

Koscheck (15-5) was released from a Montreal-area hospital Sunday afternoon, according to his trainer, Bob Cook. He cannot fly home to San Jose, Calif., because an air pocket formed behind the broken orbital bone, making air travel dangerous. UFC officials arranged for Koscheck and Cook to drive Sunday afternoon from Montreal to Boston, where the 33-year-old fighter is expected to undergo surgery Monday or Tuesday.

Some are comparing the injury to the damage dished out by Manny Pacquiao against Antonio Margarito, but let's not get too crazy about St Pierre's magical jabs. The key point is many said Margarito's corner did him a disservice letting him continue the fight because a broken face in boxing has a decent chance of ending your career. I have no idea how it compares in MMA but your orbital bone kinda holds your eyeball in place so it's just a little important.

The big question coming out of this is "Should the fight have been stopped?" Yeah, it should have been. The ringside physician took a damn close look at the eye and certainly wanted to stop the fight, but Josh Koscheck did everything he could to show he wanted to keep fighting. If he was as good of a doctor as he was a Santa Claus impersonator, then he must have known the orbital was probably broken. And while everyone was certainly happy at the time that he let things continue, it's pretty messed up in hindsight that the fight was allowed to keep going.

(image by Esther Lin via MMA Fighting)

Poor Josh Koscheck. He doesn't seem to be enjoying himself very much thus far in Montreal. I can understand why ... his balls are freezing off and there's three feet of snow on the ground. The sun disappears at 3PM. Roving bands of journos are everywhere wanting to talk about why everyone hates him. No wonder he looks so depressed.

(via MMA Fighting)

Josh Koscheck says his plan is to use his wrestling skillz to stay upright with George St Pierre and test his chin. It's a good gameplan in theory, but in reality there's a few problems: Georges didn't seem to have much of a problem the first fight around taking things to the mat, and - as Kos's teammate Jon Fitch learned two years ago - GSP's striking ability is nothing to sneeze at.

But times change. Koscheck is a better fighter than he was back in 2007, and he's actually training his wrestling this time around as opposed to last time where he supposedly didn't at all. If he does keep it on the feet, he best watch out: Georges has also improved, working with one of the best boxing trainers in the world, Freddie Roach.

“I think it’s a different fight with two different fighters,” said St. Pierre. “I’ve been working on a lot of different things. The main thing I’ve done, I’ve been working a lot on punching power. I’ve been working on that with Freddie Roach. A lot of stuff I was doing wrong and he corrected.”

“I think Freddie helped me a lot. A few months I’ve been working with him and he changed a lot of things in my mechanics. Before I knew him, I thought I knew boxing, but I found out I didn’t,” St. Pierre said. “I’ve been sparring a lot with his professional boxers. Some of his guys are world champions. I’m very ready for this fight. I’ve never had a [better] training camp ever [than] for this fight.”

Unfortunately for Georges, Freddie is tied in in Vegas this weekend cornering Amir Khan (get your BetUS boxing picks in here for that), but when you've got a fighter who's borderline OCD about everything he's taught, does GSP really need a body there in Montreal to remind him about stuff he's already drilled into his head?

I'm not always the biggest believer in "X guy trained with Y, now he's going to be X+Y*100" You don't learn via some magical osmosis - everyone's got their limitations and how much can you really learn in a few weeks, even from a boxing god? But as Bloody Elbow points out, Freddie wasn't just working generalities with St Pierre's team:

"Koscheck jumps in from far away," Roach told FightHubtv.com. "I told (Georges) to not pull away from that and beat that on the counter. I told him, 'I think you'll knock him out with the left hook in that fight.'"

That "jumping in" was never more clear than in Koscheck's fight with Paulo Thiago at UFC 95.

Strangely enough, there hasn't been a whole lot of pre-fight smack floating around for GSP vs Kos outside of The Ultimate Fighter. But now that the fight is a short two weeks away, Josh Koscheck is starting to ramp things up a bit. Here's a few of the more antagonistic answers he gave during a new Fighters Only interview:

FO: For this fight, ideally, would you like to put him on his back or keep him on his feet?

I have a great gameplan and my thing is, I don’t think George has a good chin and I don’t think his hands are that good. So I want to keep this fight on the feet and knock his ass out.

FO: Regarding your comment that St. Pierre has become a boring fighter - do you agree with suggestions that he has played it safe since the first fight with Matt Serra, when Serra put a shock TKO on him?

Yeah I believe so and I believe he hasn’t been hit since Matt Serra. That was a good crack. His chin hasn’t been tested and I think Georges has quit in him. If you look at the first Matt Hughes fight where he arm barred him, he was tapping before it was even tight.

If you look at when little Matt Serra was on top of him pounding him, he tapped out. So I believe that Georges has quit in him and you just have to take him to that point. Nobody has been able to do it since those two but I plan on doing it on December 11th.

Of course, this all depends on Koscheck being able to keep things on the feet, something few people (including himself) has been able to accomplish. Sure, there's that whole "I didn't train any wrestling leading up to the first fight" excuse from Josh. But I'd rather ignore that lame excuse and just hope that the Kos today is way better than the Kos from three years ago. If he's able to do anything on his feet other than worry about takedowns, things could actually get interesting!

We're all used to seeing Josh Koscheck rolling around the octagon playing up whatever foul real or imagined that's happened to him most recently. Now he's doing the same over some comments attributed referee Yves Lavigne where Yves allegedly criticized Koscheck's performance against Paul Daley and praised GSP as the better fighter. Koscheck doesn't just want to make sure Lavigne doesn't ref any of his fights again ... he wants the guy fired completely:

“UFC referee, Yves Lavigne is clearly not suited to be a referee after his rant of personal attacks and opinions on me as a fighter. It’s supposed to be his job to look at a fight unbiased, but how can anyone trust this guy to fairly referee any fight ever again after his comments? It’s scary to think this guy has been calling fights in the octagon for this long. It’s very fair to say Mr. Lavigne will never ref one of my fights again. I would never put all my hard work as a fighter or my livelihood in the hands of this ref.

The (UFC) and the commission would be irresponsible to let him continue his job- any call this guy makes would have to be questioned. You call MMA a professional sport? Well, professional starts at the top. Never would an NFL, NBA or other major sports official state there personal opinions publicly about a player and keep their job. I now question every call Yves has ever made as a referee. Hopefully no fighter ever has to step into a fight with Yves Lavigne as referee. Better get that resume ready Lavigne…..”

Meanwhile, Yves Lavigne is denying everything, saying:

1. I NEVER gave an interview to that journalist
2. I NEVER gave an interview regarding GSP vs Koscheck
3. My lawyer is taking care of this matter.

Since then, the original article with the alleged quotes has been taken down. But as far as Yves 'NEVER' giving an interview regarding GSP vs Koscheck, that's not exactly true. Here he is on a Quebec radio station classifying Koscheck's last fight as 'boring and dull' while defending GSP's last boring / dull fight as 'technical'. While the quotes aren't the same, they still kinda end up implying the same thing.

So is this enough to affect Yves Lavigne's status as a UFC referee regular? I certainly hope not, although he has probably given enough cause to be recused from any future GSP and Koscheck fights because of what he said. Referees need to be really careful about appearing above petty fan concerns, which makes it a not so great idea to go on radio shows and giving your personal opinion on fights and fighters. Big John McCarthy is still paying for saying stuff that was a lot more vague than that, and Yves Lavigne isn't exactly at the top of Dana White's 'favorite ref' list.

While it's not a mega Toronto debut inside the Skydome, I think we can all agree that GSP vs Koscheck 2 has found a decent home in Montreal on December 11th. It works out perfectly for everyone ... Georges gets his first hometown fight since 2008, the UFC gets a mega-event in Canada that'll moisten Toronto's orifice for 2011 penetration, and Josh Koscheck gets to walk that talk he made the last time he was in Montreal. You remember that, right? It went something along the lines of "Fuck your hockey team, and I'm going to fuck your champion too!"

Oh, and living in Montreal, I get a higher chance of seeing Josh get suckerpunched again. Probably outside the cage this time. Win!