Issue 048
April 2009
One of Britain’s leading sports journalists, Gareth A Davies has been pushing buttons and challenging opinion in the world of boxing for years. In this exclusive monthly column for Fighters Only, he’s turning his attention to MMA.
No punches being pulled, or sliding over the issues, this month as pen meets parchment. ‘Grease, is the word’, and we need to rattle the cage. Significant rulings must be made against the use of grease in mixed martial arts, before it slips silently out of the public consciousness.
Needless to say, I’m talking about UFC 94, or ‘UFC: Grease-Gate’, as it was referred to by fans. The accusation and recrimination flowed following Georges St-Pierre's physical dismantling of BJ Penn over four painful rounds in the neon city of mirage in the Mojave desert.
The result will stand of course, and should. Self-indictment, or even insistence on a re-match, would not suit either the sanctioning body or the protagonists. But greater investigation should be conducted into a contest billed as ‘one of the greatest MMA matchups ever’ and given epic proportions by its promoters. We will never know if grease had a significant impact on the outcome.
But we deserve to have the results of a full inquiry. I’m aware that time has passed, but from a neutral perspective the bout was a disappointment. GSP was barely tested. BJ Penn looked fazed in the fight, and looked unable ‘to pull the trigger’.
The Hawaiian fighter may have used up too much emotional energy in the build-up. A game plan might have helped too, by the noises and lack of direction coming out of his corner between rounds.
There is no accusation from me that GSP was cheating, yet Phil Nurse, his cornerman, has been in the game long enough to know that only the face can be greased. The fact that shoulders, the back, are greased in kick-boxing is no excuse either. Action needs to be taken, and fast. Just outlaw it.
The issue here is broader and runs deeper than just this fight or the depressed fans of BJ Penn. There is the temptation to cheat where grappling is involved. How easy would it be, for example, for a cornerman to grease his fighter’s face, the fighter then rotating the inside of his wrist on the side of his face, spreading it to both sides of his wrist, and if an opponent tries, say, an Americana, for him to escape from the lock simply by rotating his wrist? You could go on, and on …
Why allow grease in MMA when there is so obviously a massive downside to it? As much as we media men love a good controversy in the sports arena, the issue hangs like a smoky pall over the night GSP nailed BJ.
Keith Kizer, head of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, said it was “not a big deal”. I disagree. Greasing needs investigating by the sport’s sanctioning bodies, and I wouldn’t mind betting there are cases of this happening regularly.
Judge Watts removes any doubt about Bisping—Hamill
Why is it so hard for the thousands of Bisping haters in the United States to accept that the lad from Lancashire beat them at their own game, in their own backyard, in The Ultimate Fighter? It made him an instant figure of hate, an anti-hero. The Bisping backlash needs to end now.
Sure, he’s been elevated as the flagship fighter for UFC in the UK. But there are two things to consider: First in retrospect, Bisping’s sole loss by split-decision to Rashad Evans in New Jersey 15 months ago (a very close affair from where I was sitting, not 10 feet from the Octagon) doesn’t look too bad given Evans’ elevation and evolution in the 205lb division.
Second: time, too, to emasculate the Bisping-haters over their ‘fix’ call on his contest with Matt Hamill. I say this because of the judging of Chris Watts, who scored the Bisping—Hamill fight 30—27 (in favour of the American) on that night in London. This is the same Chris Watts who scored Henderson—Franklin in Dublin 30—27, in Franklin’s favour! Enough said!
Retirement comes even for legends
Dana White has an issue to deal with, and it won’t be popular with many, many fans, either. It is the retirement of some of the great names on his books, namely the likes of Randy Couture, Mark Coleman, Chuck Liddell, Matt Hughes. Even, perhaps, Wanderlei Silva.
White, the UFC, and this second generation of stars after Royce Gracie, Ken Shamrock, and Dan Severn, have grown up together. I have discussed this with White, who admits that it is a task which troubles him. I believe he may face that decision in April depending on the performance of Chuck Liddell when he meets Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua. ‘The Iceman’ has not looked himself since December 2006 when he destroyed Tito Ortiz. I called for his retirement after he was KO’d against Rashad Evans. Wrong? We’ll see.
Spike TV mistake over Wallhead
My final word this month. Spike TV made a big mistake by leaving Jimmy ‘Judo’ Wallhead out of The Ultimate Fighter series 9. Highly-regarded in British circles, the Spike TV editors questioned his ‘televisual personality’.
Dana White assured me the final decision does not rest with him. Welterweight Wallhead wouldn’t be the first ‘quiet man’ in the house. If the UFC have any sense, they will sign the guy on a direct, three-fight contract, to fight on cards in the UK.
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