I don't think you can say Lesnar was intelligently defending himself but I agree his arms were taking all the shots and it was a good non stoppage.

Many Pro's won't tap to strikes and expect the ref's to stop the fight in that situation. Ref's are aware of this and usually do the right thing, think of how many times you see taps to strikes these days.

Personally I think any other fighter would have been stopped in that fight, Brock was a major cash cow coming in and his "superhero" status gave him more time than others would have been allowed.

Yep.

If a fighter is at least trying to scramble to escape the position I think it's reasonable to allow them to keep fighting even if they are eating a good amount of strikes. But when they are just turtling up and offering no movement or resistance, I don't think fighters or fans can really complain when a fight is stopped.

It's because of the just bleed 'omg he tapped to strikes what a pussy' crowd. If a fighter didn't have the stigma attached to tapping to strikes as opposed to a sub (which is seen as fine) then people would tap when they wanted the fight to end, and conscious fighters turtling would have the time to try and defend and we'd see less premature stoppages. It would have been a travesty if the Lesnar fight was stopped, and there have been many other fights where one guy was in a really bad position and came back to win (although I can't think of any offhand I could if I had a chance to think about it)

The ref's job should be to end it when the fighter cannot intelligently defend himself. Turtling is intelligent defense and a fighter in that position can easily choose to end the fight by tapping to strikes either verbally or with a tap if they choose to do so - it would make the refs jobs a lot easier in the marginal spots

This most recent Bellator example would still have been a stoppage the moment the guy wasn't defending himself, he took about 6-7 shots after he was out and that was the ref's fault. The Fedor stoppage vs Hendo for example, Fedor did go limp, then got woken up by the next punch - good stoppage, ref was on top of it.

On another note, anyone starting to think -139 is looking good on Bendo against Nate Diaz? As much as I think Edgar beat Bendo the second time, Bendo is a more well rounded fighter than Diaz, etc. and Bendo is big for a LW so Nate won't have a real size advantage

That's ridiculous, the refs make money regardless if the ufc has their money draw win or not. You are Basicly applying that the ufc is rigged and won't stop a fight if their money draw is losing.

We have seem many early and late stopages to all different caliber of fighter, regardless of their status in the ufc.

To say any other fighter would have been stopped there exept lesnar is ludicrous.

I agree that the issue is caused by the just bleed crowd but the reality is that the fighters do view it this way. They believe tapping to strikes can negatively affect their career so they rely on the ref's (I've spoken to fighters about this)

I'm not saying the refs were paid off or concerned of the financial implications, but Lesnars star power at the time gave him more leeway than most.

I should have phrased it better.

Here's the video of the fight, starts at around the 11min mark. There are a few times in round 1 where I feel a stoppage was justified on lack of intelligent defence.


http://fightnext.com/video/4U896HKGB...s-Shane-Carwin

So if a fighter just hypothetically went to the fetal position, curled up into a ball and ate 100 unanswered strikes, you don't think the fight should be stopped?

That's ridiculous and just plain dumb. You have to do more than just cover up, nobody wants to watch someone just cover up and take strikes, not matter if they are partially blocking them. If a fighter isn't going to do anything, it's perfectly reasonable for the refs to conclude he is done fighting and stop the fight.

Rewatching the Lesnar fight (thx for posting elliot) I have to say though Lesnar wasn't as inactive as I remembered. To his credit, he was at least throwing weak punches from his back, indicating to the ref that he still wanted to keep fighting.

I hate fight cards loaded up with azn cans who've beaten other azn cans and you can't tell if they're any good. Especially when they're fighting American cans and you can't tell who sucks more.

I watched Tom DeBlass vs Cyrille to see if he was worth a play since Fukuda sucks. I came away thinking Fukuda should be the favorite. Probably around 65% to win.

Cyrille is totally one dimensional and Deblass is basically zero dimensional. Fukuda is bad but not terrible and that's enough to be a fav here imo

I agree. If Fukuda does one thing well it's a double leg TD followed by solid LnP. After watching DeBlass get taken down several times by Cyrille, I don't think he can defend Fukuda's double. Even though he's a black belt, I didn't see anything off his back that looks threatening, he just goes for half guard sweeps. I think Fukuda should LnP a victory. I would've probably said 70-75% Fukuda based on that performance but if you take into account 1st time octagon jitters, trains with AMA, and he could bounce back hard after his first loss, I dropped it to 65%.

Anyone very familiar w tuck? Zhang is really bad and it could be a good spot.

There are tons of bjj black belts who have little to no ground game on their back but still have the "bjj tool in their toolbox".

There are black belts and then there's Demian Maia

Hopefully he's finally learned he isn't a striker

yeah, but there are some fighters who constantly throw up things/are active in their guard and arent known to be the blackest of black bjj guys under gracies, just ontop my mind sass, herman, caceres, condit.

Bruce Leeroy actually has the potential to be really good once his game is fully refined. He's made me a fan over his last few fights. You're right, all of those guys are dangerous on bottom (Sass and Caceres more so). Struve is another one who has won a lot of fights from bottom or by pulling guard (Barry and Johnson come to mind, and I think he's tapped a few other guys from the bottom too)

Yeah def struve forgot about him, think it's pretty safe to say everyone who gameplans against him doesn't include laying in his guard as a part.

Struve really should pull guard more, his striking is getting better but he's won every fight that went to the ground in the UFC regardless of whether he was on top or bottom (assuming he wasn't dropped standing immediately beforehand obv)

To date (updated to include Bellator 78):

Total: 28-18-0, 82.5u bet, +6.455u, 7.8% ROI
Best Bets: 5-2-0, 17u bet, +5.814u, 34.2% ROI
3-Star Plays: 3-1-0, 11u bet, +3.37u, 30.6% ROI
2-Star Plays: 12-4-0, 37u bet, +8.53u, 23.1% ROI
1-Star Plays: 13-13-0, 36.5u bet, -5.445u, -14.9% ROI

Pick for Bellator 79:

1-star - Douglas Lima v Jacob Ortiz: 2u @ 1.283

lol amusing anecdote from Jason High's twitter...

Good example of the attitudes of some of the amateur-ish fighters in KC. “I have no doubt I could sub Demian Maia in under a minute”

He could probz KO JDS aswell lol

Must be trolling

btw is anyone heading to WSOF Saturday? I'm taking my wife she's a lucky lady...

I may go to the gold coast card if i'm not busy. WSOF looks decent for a non-UFC card.

Agree on the WSOF card Swoop. I'm kind of surprised there hasn't been any lines announced yet. Maybe because it's a non-UFC/Bellator card they think we don't care? Although I have seen lines posted for ONE FC and such before, so maybe we just have to keep waiting.

Either way, there could definitely be some value on the card. Although most of the main card fights are mismatches, there are a number of intriguing bouts.

TJ O'Brien strikes me as a possible bet if he's a large underdog. Really, Gesias Cavalcante isn't all that talented and hasn't done much but survive on his name value from Japan.

Brian Cobb could be another live underdog given the right circumstances. He's struggled a bit lately, but he's shown some talent before.

Arlovski should probably beat Cole up pretty handily. Rumble should pulverise Linderman. And I'm pretty interested to see how Tyrone Spong looks in his debut after spending some time with the Blackzillians.