ufc 119

Jake is back for a Low Blow where we take a drunken, jetlagged look at the positive side of UFC 119. Sure, some anger and disgust boils over at points and contaminates the show a bit, but we concentrated on the good fights like Dunham / Sherk and the Tavares thing and CB Dollaway's sick choke. I hate that guy but damn can he ever choke a bitch. Retarded blah blah awaits you - one full hour of 119 talkies.

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There's a lot of chatter going on right now about how wrestlers get an unfair advantage with MMA judges because of the scoring power of takedowns and positional control. It seems like getting back up from a takedown doesn't impress anyone and just gives a wrestler yet another chance to earn even more points off a second ground dragging. Evan Dunham, fresh off a garbage decision loss to Sean Sherk, throws in his two cents on the situation:

FO: It makes you wonder, though:  When you get a takedown, how is it scored?  What is control?  Is it a takedown or sticking and moving?

It’s interesting you ask that question, because I have some strong feelings about the weight of a takedown in the unified rules counting for effective grappling (the same as threatening with submissions and using an active guard) and also for control.  It seems that escaping back to your feet or pulling guard should be weighed the same since they are all forcing your opponent to a different location of the fight.

I think that’s right.  If you take somebody down for 10 seconds or 5 seconds and they get back up, I think the person that was taken down was able to implement their game the same way the wrestler was to bring the fight to where they have the advantage. 

The Sunday Junkie sums it up in this letter that lays it out about as straight-forward as it's gonna get:

Either standing back up should be rewarded the same way as a takedown, or neither should be worth anything unless damage is done. When an MMA fighter gets the fight to the ground, not only does he get the fight to where he feels he is stronger and can do more damage, he also score points with the judges. But the same doesn't happen for a striker. He works his way back up to his feet and into his comfort zone, yet he didn't score anything on the judges' cards. What he has done is given his opponent an opportunity to score more points with another takedown. If you get the takedown, and I stand back up, it should be a wash. Award points for the change of position – regardless of what it is.

It's a great idea, but like most proposed judging changes ignores the key problem in this whole situation: commission judges are abject retards and nothing's gonna get better until qualified people start getting hired and all the morons get fired. In other words, nothings gonna get better.

Dana White hates crappy main events. We saw him threaten to fire Anderson Silva if he dicked around in the cage again, so I guess it shouldn't be much of a surprise that he's willing to put a sword to Frank Mir's neck too after what we endured at UFC 119. ESPN reports:

"I have no clue about Frank," said White, before offering a clue. "To talk the stuff he does, and then fight like he fought, that's a little frustrating. Once Cro Cop stuffed his takedown attempt, his heart fell out on the floor. If Frank Mir can't bully you, his heart shrinks to the size of the Grinch's. If he can't take you down, his heart shrinks to the size of a pea."

Might we have seen the last of the 31-year-old Mir, a UFC fighter since 2001, in the Octagon? Could White cut him?

"Sure," said White, wiping some candor off his chin. "You really, really need to show up and deliver. This is a job."

This isn't Dana cutting Frank ... he later updated his twitter saying ESPN was 'being stupid' and that he said he could fire Mir but made it clear he wouldn't. But the message is clear: muck up the main event and you're on very thin ice.

Crocop is back in Croatia and aside from apologizing to the press for his performance (in retrospect this card will be known as UFC 119: We're Sorry) he also told them what he and Frank Mir were talking about against the cage before he got knocked out. According to Mirko, the conversation went something like this:

CroCop: Let me go, lets go to the centre and fight
Mir: Let's go to the mat
CroCop: OK - if I'm on top
Mir: We'll stay in the clinch

Which means the whole thing was not much different from Koscheck / Daley's "Get up and let's fight" exchange. Crocop has a habit of chit-chatting with his opponents in the cage - most recently he did it with Pat Barry too. Personally I'm more of a fists do the talking type guy, but let's not blow this out of proportion. Some are suggesting a fix and then there's that sad, sad group of people who take every wonky moment and try to weave it into a reality where MMA is fake. Those people should probably take their medication.

Frank Mir won knockout of the night, but unfortunately Dana and the gang decided he'd knocked out the crowd more than his opponent and decided 'no bonus for you!' The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, but at least they didn't just throw the money on Dana White's blackjack tab and instead awarded two Fight of the Night Bonuses instead of one - to Sean Sherk and Evan Dunham (see how goddamn amazing Dunham is? He can even make a Sherk fight good) and Matt Mitrione vs Joey Beltran. I wonder if this mean Beltran doesn't get fired. He's pretty much shown that he doesn't have much other than a rock hard head.

For Submission of the Night, I don't feel so bad for Sean McCorkle being overlooked since if Submission Defense was a nightclub, Mark Hunt would be stuck outside with Melvin Manhoef and James Toney. But Thiago Tavares redeemed his cred as a Thiago to watch with that standing guillotine and here's hoping he gets some of that mythical locker room bonus money. In the end you can't disagree with the UFC throwing Submission of the Night to CB Dollaway, who not only didn't get choked out by Joe Doerksen like many were expecting but actually did the choking himself.

Now onto some Fightlinker specific awards:

* Mike Fagan at Bloody Elbow termed the people crying about this card as "whiny little farts."  I- at this moment - completely agree.  Enjoy competitve match-ups or GTFO.

* Further elaboration - when you reach the end of a fifteen minute fight and genuinely don't know who won. how on God's green Earth is that a shitty fight?

* I reiterate and defend my Guillard over Melendez prediction.  If you stand with Melvin, you lose, and if you go to the ground with Melvin, he gets up pretty quickly.  Guillard = my favorite sub-30 fighter with 60+ fights.  Jeremy Stephens should listen to his corner more instead of trying to counter a guy that's faster than him for three rounds.

* Sean Sherk ain't done.  I thought that his proclivity to box was due to his knees being shot, but I was incorrect, my friends - Sherk still has takedowns and mad clinch strength, and he seems to have learned that his T-Rex appendages lend themselves better to close combat.  Dunham deserves credit for lasting the distance (and almost subbing Sherk), not scorn for failing to win.  Sherk's losses = Matt Hughes, GSP, BJ Penn and Frankie Edgar.  Suck it, haters.

* I told a friend of mine that his boyfriend was fighting tonight.  He responded "Chris Lytle's fighting tonight?"  Who doesn't love the guy?  Four straight wins.  Again, haters - suck it.  Put this man against whomever loses between Nate and Yushin.

* Ba-der, Ba-der, Ba-der!  Maybe it's time for Leland Roling to admit that I was right and he was wrong.  Then again, the odds of that are about the same as the odds that Lil Nog is, or ever was, a top five LHW.  Wrestling uber alles.  I can taste your tears from here.  Watch out, Bones - I think Darth might have something for you.

* There should be a law stipulating that Frank Mir must always fight people larger than he is.  Mirko is pretty much Couture's size at HW, and refuses to this day to even consider making the dip to 205.  Those that belittled the idea of the new HW division must be ashamed now that they see what a lesser skilled, larger man can do against a legend like CC.  As for Mir, let Carwin kick his ass again or something.

* McCorkle!

* I hate CB Dollaway, but that was pretty fucking sweet however you slice it.

* I can't possibly end this on a compliment for Dollaway, so I'll once again echo what Fagan said: watching fights between amazing mixed martial artists is what brought me here, and it's what's keeping me here.  I'd prefer the Powers That Be satisfy THAT urging rather than worry about the mainstream media or fickle-ass casual fans.  Tonight was about MMA, folks.  That's what it's supposed to be about.