The dreaded heel hook in action. Palhares has been banned from the UFC after this fight, for holding the submission too long. It doesn't actually seem that egregious to me in the video -- when the stakes are high, the fighter should not release the hold until instructed by the referee. See also Snap, Crackle, Pop.
Back in the day when grappling and BJJ were still fringe activities, I often had to travel to strange clubs to find training. It was intimidating to visit a new school where I didn't know anyone, even more so to spar with people who could easily injure me. The one submission I was most afraid of was the heel hook. The two serious injuries I sustained in years of training were from a straight armbar (juji gatame) and a heel hook, which sprained the tendons around my knee. The heel hook is much more effective on the street, where the opponent is likely to be wearing shoes and pants (escaping by pulling the leg out is much harder than in MMA), although there are also reasons not to pull guard in a street fight.
Palhares reportedly cried at the weigh-in after a hard cut to 170 lbs. In the past he's fought at 185 and probably walks around at 200 or so.
I gotta believe that the ref has a 'break' command that he yelled before he dove in there.
ReplyDeleteIt does seem like unsportsmanlike conduct to me. Pierce tapped 8 times and you can see there are two sets of taps in the video before the ref intervenes, and even when the ref does intervene Palhares does not let go immediately.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rousimar_Palhares#Drop_to_Welterweight_and_release_from_the_UFC
That's a weird sport. Who would be ok with having another persons blood
ReplyDeletepooring into their eyes? All the non-fighter in the events wear gloves.
Palhares has a reputation for doing this in both other competitions and in training. I'm sure that played into the ban.
ReplyDeleteI can't think of any other fighter I would rather not have holding onto my leg than Rousimer Palhares.
Watching the fight as it happened, it didn't look too egregious. But looking at the replay I could see that the ref really had to struggle to get him to break. As others have noticed, he has a history of this. And his former, coach Murilo Bustamante, said one of the reasons he dropped him was because he did this to sparring partners and hurt them in training camp. He said he even had a psychologist work with him to try to get him to stop hurting people, and it didn't work
ReplyDeleteAll that testosterone supplementation makes it hard to know when to stop.
ReplyDeletesteve could "prove" he wasn't a fairy with feigned interest in a more respectable sport.
ReplyDelete