Showing posts with label strikeforce. Show all posts
Showing posts with label strikeforce. Show all posts
Monday, May 21, 2012
Melendez v tThompson III and bad judging in MMA with added eye pokes
I'm not really happy with the way Melendez v Thompson III went down. Not necessarily that Melenedez won - I expected that, indeed, I expected Melendez to dominate Thompson but that is far from what happened because I thought Thompson won that fight (so did one judge). But because Thompson got eye poked three times
In Melendez's corner was Jake Shields, who in his fight with Georges St-Pierre, poked GSP at least five times. After the third round, you can clearly hear GSP in the corner saying, "I can't see out of my left eye." By the end of the fight, he couldn't see much out of his right eye, either.
So, here's the frustrating part: how often does a guy have to get poked in the eye before a ref takes a point off? And why are people who train with Jake Shields such eye gouging bastards? (I can't really blame Cesar Gracie, as much as I might want to. The Diaz brothers don't do eye pokes.)
This is a serious issue, way worse than nearly any other foul in MMA, because of the fragility of eyes. But for lesser fouls, points would be deducted. The third time you kick a dude in the nuts? They're taking a point. Same for cage holding, or holding the other guy's shorts or whatever. With any other foul, three times is almost always when they take away a point. But in Melendez v Thompson III, Gil poked Thompson three times and the ref gave Gil a warning after the third poke.
To add insult to injury, after none of these eye pokes did the ring doctor come out and make sure, y'know, that Thompson's eyes were okay. It's hard not to regard ring-side doctors as being somewhere below junkie whores in terms of trustworthiness. Still, this is their fucking job. It's an important job, because no fighter admits to being unable to fight. (So, for instance, in the very next fight, Josh Barnett broke his hand in the first round and kept fighting for four more rounds. GSP did not even alert anyone but his corner to the fact he was blind in one eye. Toughness is a prized trait among fighters, they are usually unwilling to admit to any weakness. Which is why we have these doctors, right?)
That's disgraceful. Just disgraceful.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Fedor Emelianeko's team goes off the deep end
Fedor Emelianenko was my first MMA crush. The goofy looking Russian seemed . . . well, unbeatable. He was also the first fighter I'd seen who didn't fight standing up and then fight on the ground -- every strike seemed to be a takedown attempt. It was beautiful to watch. But time marches on. The unbeatable Fedor has lost twice in a row, once to Fabricio Werdum and a few days ago to Antonio Silva. Both fighters are great fighters, it's not any sort of shame to lose to either one, but it's clear that the indestructible Fedor is gone. He's getting a bit long in the tooth for sports, his conditioning was never the best, and the sport has changed since his heyday.
When any athlete reaches this place, what most fans really want is for them to exit with grace. This is particularly true of contact sports, where continuing past your prime is a recipe for brain damage. And even if they continue in the sport, their fans want them to accept that they're no longer in their prime.
Often, this is not the case. In MMA, you have people like Frank Shamrock, an early legend of the sport, "the most dangerous man alive", who in their late forties insist on fighting. These fights are taking place in increasingly sketchy venues against opponents who verge on outright incompetent . . . and Frank can still barely eek by, his body a mass of bruised flesh, old scars and the natural enemy of everyone, everywhere: time. You can see the same sort of thing in the later career of Muhammad Ali. Mike Tyson is a bitter case, not only because of his rape conviction, but how he allowed himself to become a sideshow attraction.
Fedor could continue to have a career in MMA, of course. He could teach. He has a lot of experience and skills that could be used to raise the next generation of Russian and Ukranian MMA fighters. For the opportunity to learn from the great Fedor Emelianenko, people would literally travel from the ends of the earth. It's a dignified, respectable career and a lot of the MMA guys from Fedor's time are transitioning very well to their new role as, primarily, trainers -- the Noguiera brothers being standout in this area. Alternately, since he was once the highest paid MMA professional in the world with a reputation for a humble existence, he could also do whatever he wants. Or return to firefighting . . .
Clearly, that's not what's happening if I'm writing this article like that. What's happening, instead, is Fedor's management is going crazy.
Fighters with crazy management teams is nothing new. Fighting sports are rife with criminal activity, if nothing else. I don't imagine this is less true in the kleptocracy of Russia as it is in countries that aren't basically run by the mob. But you rarely get this kind of crazy.
First, Fedor's management team said that the guy who beat him, Antonio Silva, couldn't POSSIBLY be twenty pounds heavier the day of the fight than he was thirty-six hours earlier at the weigh-in without the use of "chemicals". Which is just nonsense. In fighting sports that do their weigh-ins the day before the fight, it's normal for the fighters to dehydrate and starve themselves in order to cut weight. Then, in the thirty-six hours leading up to the fight, they rehydrate and have a couple of huge meals to put the weight back on. Twenty pounds is a lot of weight to cut, yeah, but Bigfoot Silva is a really big guy. Cutting from 285 to 265 is a reasonable cut. Cutting weight is normal for fighters in any professional fighting sport, and it is certainly something Russian fighters do.
Second, steroids don't work that way. You don't take steroids and instantly bulk up. This isn't a comic book. It takes weeks of effort, even with steroids, to gain appreciable weight. There are illegal diuretics that can help cutting weight, but Silva's cut, for a man his size, is simply reasonable. And it isn't like the state of California didn't test all the fighters after the fight -- due diligence will be observed.
More generally, this is something the Fedor camp has been fussing about for years. The idea that someone, somewhere, was taking steroids. They have been very critical of Alistair Overeem because they assert that no one could achieve his physique without the use of steroids. It is, indeed, a rare guy who can naturally get up to 260 pounds of lean muscle, which is what the Reem carries, but he's also legendary for his training discipline. He eats right, he works out all the time and if you look at his family it's clear the Overeems won the genetic lottery in a big way -- they're all big, strong guys. Plus, Overeem has never been caught taking steroids. Not in dozens and dozens of fights. But Fedor's camp has repeatedly insinuated that it's impossible for people to have the kind of physique that Overeem has without steroids.
When Fedor's camp has whined about steroids, it hasn't come off as some principled stand against performance enhancing drugs. It comes off like they're creating a justification as to why their guy might not win. Which is unfortunate.
(And, humorously, they asserted that Russian athletes don't take steroids. We call that "rewriting history". The Russians pioneered the use of steroids as performance enhancing drugs. Additionally, the steroids that most Americans take come from one of two places: Mexico and Russia. For a country where the athletes don't use steroids, it's incredibly easy to get Russian steroids.)
The second bit is even crazier. One of Fedor's coaches, Vladimir Voronov, said, okay, I'm just going to quote it:
"We believe that forbidden psychological technology was used… It seems to us that not everything was right, and that certain technologies were used. Not ones that could be seen by the naked eye but psychological technologies that worked on both fighters at a distance," he said to Russian website LifeSports.ru
"That is why during the fight Fedor was just not like himself. It seemed very strange behaviour from Fedor. He stepped into the ring and did everything exactly the opposite of what we practiced before the fight. We were all shocked! Fedor had never previously done such a thing.
"Now nearly a week passes, everything settles, and we understand why all this happened."
Voronov also observed with suspicion the fact that Fedor seemed to look "a little depressed" while Silva "literally glowed from the overflowing of his energy". Voronov suspects the use of a person or persons in the audience capable of "blocking energy" and "transferring energy from one person to another".
Uh, Silva's camp used superpowers to transfer some form of life energy away from Fedor?! Am I the only person who thinks this sounds like Scientology? Next he'll be rambling about body thetans!
It makes me sigh. Fedor was, at one time, the best fighter in the world. He had twenty-eight victories in a row, often against the finest competition in the world. He fought better than anyone. But if this keeps up, he'll be a parody of himself. Even if he decides to fight again, I hope he casts off this dead weight and finds himself new representation. The Minotauro Noguiera has offered Fedor a place in the Black House. Which is, in the first place, a measure of the incredible respect Minotauro has for Fedor -- some of Fedor's wins were at Minotauro's expense, after all -- but the Black House is one of the best training camps in the world, handling the likes of Anderson Silva and Junior dos Santos. And even if Fedor were not to fight out of the Black House he could teach free of the poisonous team he's got around him, now.
When any athlete reaches this place, what most fans really want is for them to exit with grace. This is particularly true of contact sports, where continuing past your prime is a recipe for brain damage. And even if they continue in the sport, their fans want them to accept that they're no longer in their prime.
Often, this is not the case. In MMA, you have people like Frank Shamrock, an early legend of the sport, "the most dangerous man alive", who in their late forties insist on fighting. These fights are taking place in increasingly sketchy venues against opponents who verge on outright incompetent . . . and Frank can still barely eek by, his body a mass of bruised flesh, old scars and the natural enemy of everyone, everywhere: time. You can see the same sort of thing in the later career of Muhammad Ali. Mike Tyson is a bitter case, not only because of his rape conviction, but how he allowed himself to become a sideshow attraction.
Fedor could continue to have a career in MMA, of course. He could teach. He has a lot of experience and skills that could be used to raise the next generation of Russian and Ukranian MMA fighters. For the opportunity to learn from the great Fedor Emelianenko, people would literally travel from the ends of the earth. It's a dignified, respectable career and a lot of the MMA guys from Fedor's time are transitioning very well to their new role as, primarily, trainers -- the Noguiera brothers being standout in this area. Alternately, since he was once the highest paid MMA professional in the world with a reputation for a humble existence, he could also do whatever he wants. Or return to firefighting . . .
Clearly, that's not what's happening if I'm writing this article like that. What's happening, instead, is Fedor's management is going crazy.
Fighters with crazy management teams is nothing new. Fighting sports are rife with criminal activity, if nothing else. I don't imagine this is less true in the kleptocracy of Russia as it is in countries that aren't basically run by the mob. But you rarely get this kind of crazy.
First, Fedor's management team said that the guy who beat him, Antonio Silva, couldn't POSSIBLY be twenty pounds heavier the day of the fight than he was thirty-six hours earlier at the weigh-in without the use of "chemicals". Which is just nonsense. In fighting sports that do their weigh-ins the day before the fight, it's normal for the fighters to dehydrate and starve themselves in order to cut weight. Then, in the thirty-six hours leading up to the fight, they rehydrate and have a couple of huge meals to put the weight back on. Twenty pounds is a lot of weight to cut, yeah, but Bigfoot Silva is a really big guy. Cutting from 285 to 265 is a reasonable cut. Cutting weight is normal for fighters in any professional fighting sport, and it is certainly something Russian fighters do.
Second, steroids don't work that way. You don't take steroids and instantly bulk up. This isn't a comic book. It takes weeks of effort, even with steroids, to gain appreciable weight. There are illegal diuretics that can help cutting weight, but Silva's cut, for a man his size, is simply reasonable. And it isn't like the state of California didn't test all the fighters after the fight -- due diligence will be observed.
More generally, this is something the Fedor camp has been fussing about for years. The idea that someone, somewhere, was taking steroids. They have been very critical of Alistair Overeem because they assert that no one could achieve his physique without the use of steroids. It is, indeed, a rare guy who can naturally get up to 260 pounds of lean muscle, which is what the Reem carries, but he's also legendary for his training discipline. He eats right, he works out all the time and if you look at his family it's clear the Overeems won the genetic lottery in a big way -- they're all big, strong guys. Plus, Overeem has never been caught taking steroids. Not in dozens and dozens of fights. But Fedor's camp has repeatedly insinuated that it's impossible for people to have the kind of physique that Overeem has without steroids.
When Fedor's camp has whined about steroids, it hasn't come off as some principled stand against performance enhancing drugs. It comes off like they're creating a justification as to why their guy might not win. Which is unfortunate.
(And, humorously, they asserted that Russian athletes don't take steroids. We call that "rewriting history". The Russians pioneered the use of steroids as performance enhancing drugs. Additionally, the steroids that most Americans take come from one of two places: Mexico and Russia. For a country where the athletes don't use steroids, it's incredibly easy to get Russian steroids.)
The second bit is even crazier. One of Fedor's coaches, Vladimir Voronov, said, okay, I'm just going to quote it:
"We believe that forbidden psychological technology was used… It seems to us that not everything was right, and that certain technologies were used. Not ones that could be seen by the naked eye but psychological technologies that worked on both fighters at a distance," he said to Russian website LifeSports.ru
"That is why during the fight Fedor was just not like himself. It seemed very strange behaviour from Fedor. He stepped into the ring and did everything exactly the opposite of what we practiced before the fight. We were all shocked! Fedor had never previously done such a thing.
"Now nearly a week passes, everything settles, and we understand why all this happened."
Voronov also observed with suspicion the fact that Fedor seemed to look "a little depressed" while Silva "literally glowed from the overflowing of his energy". Voronov suspects the use of a person or persons in the audience capable of "blocking energy" and "transferring energy from one person to another".
Uh, Silva's camp used superpowers to transfer some form of life energy away from Fedor?! Am I the only person who thinks this sounds like Scientology? Next he'll be rambling about body thetans!
It makes me sigh. Fedor was, at one time, the best fighter in the world. He had twenty-eight victories in a row, often against the finest competition in the world. He fought better than anyone. But if this keeps up, he'll be a parody of himself. Even if he decides to fight again, I hope he casts off this dead weight and finds himself new representation. The Minotauro Noguiera has offered Fedor a place in the Black House. Which is, in the first place, a measure of the incredible respect Minotauro has for Fedor -- some of Fedor's wins were at Minotauro's expense, after all -- but the Black House is one of the best training camps in the world, handling the likes of Anderson Silva and Junior dos Santos. And even if Fedor were not to fight out of the Black House he could teach free of the poisonous team he's got around him, now.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Pat Miletich on Strikeforce Challengers 13
I have decided that Strikeforce color commentator Pat Miletich stinks. For you non-mixed martial arts fans out there, Miletich is a former UFC champion and he has a martial arts school that's actually really good. My bone is not with his fighting or his teaching, but with his commentary in MMA events.
In particular, watching Strikeforce Challengers 13, several times he opined it was a bad idea for fighters with top control on the ground to attempt submissions because of the likelihood of losing top control. He suggested, apparently quite sincerely, that the best way to win is to grind out a victory using wrestling lay-and-pray techniques . . . which is a big "ugh" for me. Wrestling in MMA is probably the perfect defensive art. Good takedowns, takedown defense, reversals and escapes, it allows a fighter to decide if the fight is going to go to the ground and if it's going to stay there. Being able to control position is one of the keys to victory in MMA. I grasp that. Wrestling is, and should be, a part of MMA.
I also grasp that MMA needs scoring criteria and it is reasonable that one of those scoring criteria should be who "dominates" the fight. Often, particularly with defensive fighters, like wrestlers vs. Brazilian jiu jitsu fighters, nothing much will happen. Both wrestling and BJJ basically teach fighters how to stop the action from progressing. Given this reality, at least some fights are going to end with the fighters basically holding onto each other for fifteen minutes as two defensive grapplers refuse to do anything, waiting for the other fighter to make the move that will never come. No one is going to be really pleased with those kinds of fights, but they happen. So you're going to need to come up with a scoring mechanism and dominance is it . . . and as the rules currently stand, being on top is "domination". So when very little happens in a fight, the guy who stayed on top longest wins.
I think this is a problem in a couple of different ways. First, it's boring. MMA fights are entertainment. Boring fights should be avoided whenever possible. While it's true that every sport is going to have boring events now and then, it's wrong, I feel, to encourage athletes to be dull.
Second, it's bad self-defense. One of the reason MMA is so popular is the notion that these guys really are the best unarmed fighters in the world. That MMA fighters, with their skill at so many talents, are the guys you least want to meet in a dark alley at night. That MMA would work in a fight. Lay-and-pray tactics hurt that idea. In a real fight, finishing it quickly is of great importance. If you're engaged in violence in the real world, it's because something is tragically wrong (dismissing as irrelevant those situations where guys brawl for fun), because you're fighting for your life. Laying on the ground for five minutes trying to smother your opponent is a pretty stupid idea when at any moment some of his pals might come by and stomp your guts out. Sure, a cop might also come by and save your ass, but do you really want to take that chance? Also, in grappling where you're not doing very much, desperation starts to set in. If, while grappling, you keep moving, you radically reduce the odds of your opponent deciding to start the really dirty techniques that make ground fighting on the street so mind bogglingly dangerous. For the less bloody minded out there, I'm talking primarily about eye gouges, but also fish hooks, head butts, throat grabs and groin pulls. If you're moving from position to position, it's harder for a person to visualize and execute the brutal moves not to mention a submission, by defeating your opponent or going very substantially in that direction (sure, a person COULD fight with a broken arm, but most won't and even if they do, uh, they've got a broken arm) makes it impossible or almost impossible for them to pull anything off. So, in a self-defense situation, pretty much the last thing you want to do is lay on top of your opponent while they figure out how to gouge out your eyes or hope one of their friends comes along.
So, when a wrestler wins by top control, they're gaming the rules in such a way that breaks the idea that MMA is good for self-defense. This idea is pretty important for the popularity of MMA. The decline in interest in boxing in the US is attributable in large part for the lack of faith Americans have in the "utility" of boxing as a self-defense art. Vulnerable to kicks and grappling, boxing is seen as a kind of "partial art". MMA, I feel, better fits the ethos that combat sports should be self-defense oriented, that what happens in the ring or cage should be useful "on the street".
Gaming the rules to grind out a boring victory, then, is bad for MMA generally. (The way to fix the problem is to recognize, in grappling in MMA, position is neutral. While I can be occasionally frustrated at the defensiveness of BJJ fighters (when it slips into "doing nothing"), the truth is that they can win from the bottom. That they want to be on the bottom. Yes, the top position is good for ground-and-pound, but the bottom position is good for submissions. Indeed, there is hardly a single submission in MMA from heel hook to guillotine choke that isn't best finished with your back to the ground. It's sort of silly, I think, to say that the guy on top, in MMA, is somehow "winning". How can putting yourself in the position to be submitted be considered winning just because you might launch a couple of leverage-less punches? By recognizing that a top position is not inherently superior, you could get rid of most lay-and-pray fighting techniques. I think this would be for the best.)
Additionally, from an MMA-rules based point of view, saying that you shouldn't try for submissions because you'll lose top position isn't particularly good tactics. While some fighters ought to lay-and-pray, in order to win a fight, they should do that only if they don't have a good submissions game. Submissions end fights. Lay-and-pray grinding means giving your opponent additional opportunities for them to win the fight. Many a good wrestler has lost because, rather than submitting their opponent, they've tried to grind out a victory and found themselves in a triangle armbar. Yeah, they were really winning until they lost.
To top it all off, it's a disservice to pretty much the only reason color commentators in MMA shows exist - to give new fans an idea of what the hell is going on and to clarify complex action. When Miletich opines on what he thinks the fighters ought to do rather than describe what they are doing in the midst of a fight, he's not being real useful to anyone. At that point, he might as well shut the fuck up.
Which is the whole point of this: he should shut the fuck up. What he's advocating is bad for MMA. No one wants to see boring lay-and-pray grinding victories. What he's advocating isn't necessarily good advice -- a submission, ending a fight, means you win. Maybe that's worth giving up top control for a bit. And by trying to coach the fighters rather than commenting on the fight, in the sense of describing the action to make it more comprehensible to the audience who isn't right there at ringside with three monitors viewing the action from different angles with people pointing out where subtle action is going on, he's voiding the warranty for why he should be on the show at all. I like it when an MMA pro is right there to talk us through the action, and I don't mind if they have opinions -- my favorite in this regard is Bas Rutten from when he was doing commentary for Pride FC -- it's just that if they're criticizing the strategy of the fighters rather than explaining it, why do they exist at all?
In particular, watching Strikeforce Challengers 13, several times he opined it was a bad idea for fighters with top control on the ground to attempt submissions because of the likelihood of losing top control. He suggested, apparently quite sincerely, that the best way to win is to grind out a victory using wrestling lay-and-pray techniques . . . which is a big "ugh" for me. Wrestling in MMA is probably the perfect defensive art. Good takedowns, takedown defense, reversals and escapes, it allows a fighter to decide if the fight is going to go to the ground and if it's going to stay there. Being able to control position is one of the keys to victory in MMA. I grasp that. Wrestling is, and should be, a part of MMA.
I also grasp that MMA needs scoring criteria and it is reasonable that one of those scoring criteria should be who "dominates" the fight. Often, particularly with defensive fighters, like wrestlers vs. Brazilian jiu jitsu fighters, nothing much will happen. Both wrestling and BJJ basically teach fighters how to stop the action from progressing. Given this reality, at least some fights are going to end with the fighters basically holding onto each other for fifteen minutes as two defensive grapplers refuse to do anything, waiting for the other fighter to make the move that will never come. No one is going to be really pleased with those kinds of fights, but they happen. So you're going to need to come up with a scoring mechanism and dominance is it . . . and as the rules currently stand, being on top is "domination". So when very little happens in a fight, the guy who stayed on top longest wins.
I think this is a problem in a couple of different ways. First, it's boring. MMA fights are entertainment. Boring fights should be avoided whenever possible. While it's true that every sport is going to have boring events now and then, it's wrong, I feel, to encourage athletes to be dull.
Second, it's bad self-defense. One of the reason MMA is so popular is the notion that these guys really are the best unarmed fighters in the world. That MMA fighters, with their skill at so many talents, are the guys you least want to meet in a dark alley at night. That MMA would work in a fight. Lay-and-pray tactics hurt that idea. In a real fight, finishing it quickly is of great importance. If you're engaged in violence in the real world, it's because something is tragically wrong (dismissing as irrelevant those situations where guys brawl for fun), because you're fighting for your life. Laying on the ground for five minutes trying to smother your opponent is a pretty stupid idea when at any moment some of his pals might come by and stomp your guts out. Sure, a cop might also come by and save your ass, but do you really want to take that chance? Also, in grappling where you're not doing very much, desperation starts to set in. If, while grappling, you keep moving, you radically reduce the odds of your opponent deciding to start the really dirty techniques that make ground fighting on the street so mind bogglingly dangerous. For the less bloody minded out there, I'm talking primarily about eye gouges, but also fish hooks, head butts, throat grabs and groin pulls. If you're moving from position to position, it's harder for a person to visualize and execute the brutal moves not to mention a submission, by defeating your opponent or going very substantially in that direction (sure, a person COULD fight with a broken arm, but most won't and even if they do, uh, they've got a broken arm) makes it impossible or almost impossible for them to pull anything off. So, in a self-defense situation, pretty much the last thing you want to do is lay on top of your opponent while they figure out how to gouge out your eyes or hope one of their friends comes along.
So, when a wrestler wins by top control, they're gaming the rules in such a way that breaks the idea that MMA is good for self-defense. This idea is pretty important for the popularity of MMA. The decline in interest in boxing in the US is attributable in large part for the lack of faith Americans have in the "utility" of boxing as a self-defense art. Vulnerable to kicks and grappling, boxing is seen as a kind of "partial art". MMA, I feel, better fits the ethos that combat sports should be self-defense oriented, that what happens in the ring or cage should be useful "on the street".
Gaming the rules to grind out a boring victory, then, is bad for MMA generally. (The way to fix the problem is to recognize, in grappling in MMA, position is neutral. While I can be occasionally frustrated at the defensiveness of BJJ fighters (when it slips into "doing nothing"), the truth is that they can win from the bottom. That they want to be on the bottom. Yes, the top position is good for ground-and-pound, but the bottom position is good for submissions. Indeed, there is hardly a single submission in MMA from heel hook to guillotine choke that isn't best finished with your back to the ground. It's sort of silly, I think, to say that the guy on top, in MMA, is somehow "winning". How can putting yourself in the position to be submitted be considered winning just because you might launch a couple of leverage-less punches? By recognizing that a top position is not inherently superior, you could get rid of most lay-and-pray fighting techniques. I think this would be for the best.)
Additionally, from an MMA-rules based point of view, saying that you shouldn't try for submissions because you'll lose top position isn't particularly good tactics. While some fighters ought to lay-and-pray, in order to win a fight, they should do that only if they don't have a good submissions game. Submissions end fights. Lay-and-pray grinding means giving your opponent additional opportunities for them to win the fight. Many a good wrestler has lost because, rather than submitting their opponent, they've tried to grind out a victory and found themselves in a triangle armbar. Yeah, they were really winning until they lost.
To top it all off, it's a disservice to pretty much the only reason color commentators in MMA shows exist - to give new fans an idea of what the hell is going on and to clarify complex action. When Miletich opines on what he thinks the fighters ought to do rather than describe what they are doing in the midst of a fight, he's not being real useful to anyone. At that point, he might as well shut the fuck up.
Which is the whole point of this: he should shut the fuck up. What he's advocating is bad for MMA. No one wants to see boring lay-and-pray grinding victories. What he's advocating isn't necessarily good advice -- a submission, ending a fight, means you win. Maybe that's worth giving up top control for a bit. And by trying to coach the fighters rather than commenting on the fight, in the sense of describing the action to make it more comprehensible to the audience who isn't right there at ringside with three monitors viewing the action from different angles with people pointing out where subtle action is going on, he's voiding the warranty for why he should be on the show at all. I like it when an MMA pro is right there to talk us through the action, and I don't mind if they have opinions -- my favorite in this regard is Bas Rutten from when he was doing commentary for Pride FC -- it's just that if they're criticizing the strategy of the fighters rather than explaining it, why do they exist at all?
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