Strikeforce: Houston Parting Shots

Besides the upset losses suffered by Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal and Bobby Lashley, there was plenty else to talk about after Strikeforce’s Houston show. Here are my thoughts on the other aspects of the event, including some poor performances by referees and (gasp!) even commentators.

Everything’s bigger in Texas…including referee screw-ups

Before I become the 1,384th person to rip into Jon Schorle’s performance, let me comment on the refereeing of Kerry Hatley in the fight between KJ Noons and Jorge Gurgel.

There are two obvious situations that occurred that Hatley had to respond to in the fight: the late (by a split-second) punch that floored Gurgel at the end of round one, and the illegal knee that Noons landed as Hatley was attempting to end the fight in round two.

As far as the late punch goes, the only course of action I could have seen taken was a no contest ruling that would have ended the fight. Hatley was right in not disqualifying Noons; he began throwing the punch right as the bell was sounding and it landed just a split-second after. It’s not as if Gurgel dropped his hands because he heard the bell sound.

Now, if Gurgel would have been deemed unable to continue, it would be a clear no contest. However, Gurgel did want to continue, and though he was unquestionably affected by the shot, I don’t think it would be fair to penalize Noons for an unintentional infraction by DQing him.

The knee strike was another story, though. That strike is illegal whether the referee tries to stop the fight or not, and some disciplinary action should be taken on Noons. I would say that a fine would be the best route to go. I don’t think Noons should be DQed for this infraction, either, because the knee didn’t affect the outcome of the fight (the referee was already moving in to stop the bout). If the knee had caused the knockout (and thus, the stoppage), it would be different.

Hatley is definitely deserving of some criticism for the awkward and indecisive way he stopped the bout, which led to Noons landing extra shots on an essentially-defenseless Gurgel. However, most of the blame goes to Noons for throwing an illegal knee, anyway.

Jon Schorle, who refereed the Lashley-Griggs fight, doesn’t get a similar benefit of the doubt, though. Lashley was inexplicably stood up from the full mount, presumably for inactivity. There was some confusion, though, because Schorle also had Lashley’s cut checked, too. However, the fight was restarted from a standing position, and an exhausted Lashley shot from very far out upon the restart, while Griggs easily stopped the takedown attempt and started blasting Lashley with hammer fists. Lashley was too tired to finish the takedown or protect himself, and the fight was (justly) stopped.

Still, though: what was with the stand up? If it took place just to check the cut, Schorle made a grave mistake by not putting the fighters back in their original position. If it was due to inactivity, it was still an awful decision.

Lashley took the mount with 2:47 left in round two. Upon doing so, he immediately postured up and threw over a dozen punches, then briefly paused and unleashed several more. Not all of them landed, but that has no bearing in a discussion about whether a fighter is inactive, anyway. With about 2:25 left, twenty seconds after Lashley took the position, Griggs started bucking with all the explosiveness he could muster, pushing himself away from the cage and trying to get Lashley off of him.

Probably as a result of this effort, Lashley got low again, controlling his opponent and throwing just a few short shots in the next twenty seconds. From then on, Lashley alternated short shots and posturing up to throw a couple of bigger ones, while only going more than five seconds without some sort of punch two times, both of which lasted about ten seconds. The second of these little pockets of inactivity resulted in the referee stand up with about 50 seconds left in the round.

So, Lashley was stood up from the mount after throwing literally dozens of punches and only twice going more than five seconds without some sort of offense in a period of two minutes? Unsurprisingly, none of the members of the three-man commentary team called attention or even seemed to notice that the referee had stood up a fighter from the mount with under a minute left in a round, nor that the fight had been resumed from a standing position.

Lashley may have gone on to lose the fight regardless. We’ll never know, though. The point is that he shouldn’t have lost a fight as such a direct result of referee incompetence. A referee’s job is to protect the fighters and prevent (or punish) rule infractions, not to steer the result of the fight through unnecessary intervention.

Leave your black belts at home, apparently

Not since the UFC’s debut in Abu Dhabi have we seen such an exhibition of Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belts forgoing their area of expertise in favor of prolonged striking exhibitions. As mentioned earlier, Jorge Gurgel was yet again sucked into a kickboxing match that led to his demise, while Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza won a close decision based upon his choice to put on a five-round kickboxing match with Tim Kennedy.

With Gurgel, the decision to stand and trade with a professional boxer and former kickboxing champion was predictable, if not sensible. Gurgel was bounced from the UFC largely for either his inability to get fights to the ground or his unwillingness to even try to do so, but hasn’t learned his lesson yet. Just one sloppy takedown attempt was all Gurgel mustered in two rounds of action against a fighter that had an obvious advantage every minute that the fight stayed in a standing position.

Jacare seems to have confidence in his striking, and I’m not saying that his striking isn’t good. However, you would expect to see more than two takedown attempts in a 25-minute fight from someone who has among the best jiu-jitsu skills in MMA today. I get it, I get it: you’re proud of the progress you’ve made with your kickboxing. Still, if you’re one of the best in the world when it comes to jiu-jitsu, why wouldn’t you want to use that as your main weapon?

Quick Shots

–You know that any Strikeforce show is going to be a train wreck of awful commentary thanks to the combination of failed stand-up comedian Mauro Ranallo, Gus “Sometimes These Things Happen in MMA” Johnson and the always-grating Frank Shamrock. Still, is a little attentiveness to what is going on too much to ask?

Whether it was not even mentioning the controversial stand up in the Lashley fight or Johnson lobbing softball questions at KJ Noons instead of asking him about the late punch or illegal knee that he threw, you can always count on the Strikeforce crew to either ignore or just plain miss the most important parts of a fight.

Don’t even get me started about the hilarious scene that transpired when Shamrock tried to argue that Noons’ knee to Gurgel wasn’t illegal. Yeah, Frank…because you’re an expert on illegal knees, right? Oh, wait. You kind of are! Just ask Renzo Gracie.

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Tags: Bobby Lashley, Frank Shamrock, horrible refereeing, Jorge Gurgel, KJ Noons, Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza, Strikeforce, terrible commentating