Dan Miragliotta's Reasons

by jemaleddin on Jun 3, 2008 8:26 AM EDT

According to Nicholas Lembo, counsel to the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board in the New York Times:

"He [Miragliotta] thought at the end of the second round that they were both completely exhausted and was keeping a close eye on both of them," Lembo said. "Kimbo happened to get off the first couple clean shots and, in his judgment and his experience, he thought Thompson was done."

...which is at least accurate. It's not the way that most fights get stopped, but they were certainly both gassing. The difference between the fighters was that Thompson knew that in that situation he could take the fight to the ground, protect himself and pound out Kimbo. Kimbo had no such option, and was thus in greater danger of injury.

Also, and I never thought I'd be typing this, the New York Times has a shout-out to MMA Junkie:

"Way to go ‘Dirty Dan' Miragliotta!" read one post on mmajunkie.com. "What were your instructions? If Kimbo doesn't get knocked out, make sure he wins the fight?"

Another added, "This is the beginning of the end of M.M.A."

Great - the trolls are taking over the Gray Lady too.

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Comments

got a link to the NYT piece?

That’s all that’s missing from a great post.

by Kid Nate on Jun 3, 2008 8:31 AM EDT reply actions

uh

It’s in there – first 4 words?

Don't believe a word I say, I don't train BJJ. -- TangleBones

by jemaleddin on Jun 3, 2008 9:11 AM EDT up reply actions

d'oh

I’m new to these here internets.

by Kid Nate on Jun 3, 2008 10:18 AM EDT up reply actions

He also said here (click me!), “Why I stopped the fight was the uppercut-cross-hook-uppercut combination that knocked him on his ass—well, not on his ass, but it knocked him into the fence. I looked into his eyes. I saw the blank stare, I knew he was out of it, I stopped the fight, and when I grabbed him to tell him the fight was over he still thought he was fighting Kimbo. He tried to take a swing at me and didn’t realize where he was at.“

I find some of that odd… like that he thought he was still fighting Kimbo. Seemed clear to me he knew exactly who it was, what had happened, and was pissed at the ref.

by mythbuster on Jun 3, 2008 9:57 AM EDT reply actions

Ditto

Yeah – I take more of a Fight Club approach to stopping fights:

Third rule of fight club, someone yells “Stop!”, goes limp, taps out, the fight is over.
...
Seventh rule, fights will go on as long as they have to.

Nobody tapped, nobody went limp. James was more gassed than he was hurt.

Don't believe a word I say, I don't train BJJ. -- TangleBones

by jemaleddin on Jun 3, 2008 10:01 AM EDT up reply actions

There is no way you can say that Thompson thought the ref was Kimbo, he was just pissed (and rightly so) that he was screwed out of his win, or at least to finish the fight.

by pr0cs on Jun 3, 2008 1:17 PM EDT up reply actions

I wish we had the audio

I’d love to hear what Thompson sounded like there – he certainly looks like a zombie, but he seems to be doing a pretty good job telling off Dan! Hitting the ref isn’t cool, but it sure must have felt good at that moment.

Don't believe a word I say, I don't train BJJ. -- TangleBones

by jemaleddin on Jun 3, 2008 1:34 PM EDT up reply actions

It was more of a push anyway.

Intentional Blog on Balls

by Richard Wade on Jun 3, 2008 1:50 PM EDT up reply actions

IMO he looks goofy at the best of times, add getting clocked a few times, being insanely tired and you’ll have it all. He isn’t out on his feet, he isn’t fighting Dan because he thinks he’s Kimo he’s fighting him because he’s pissed off. I can’t figure out what he’s saying, agree that audio would be nice but likely drowned out due to the crowd.

by pr0cs on Jun 3, 2008 1:51 PM EDT reply actions

“drowned out due to the crowd”

...and Kimbo’s labored breathing. :-)

Don't believe a word I say, I don't train BJJ. -- TangleBones

by jemaleddin on Jun 3, 2008 2:17 PM EDT up reply actions

I’ll start off by saying that I don’t think the fight was fixed. The issue I had was I felt Miragliotta was inconsistent in the way he called the fight. Kimbo is allowed to sit on the bottom and take elbows to the head for a minute and a half, doing virtually nothing to defend himself, but Thompson gets wobbly on the feet and the bout is stopped? I know the elbows weren’t the most damaging, but those are the rules. If I recall correctly Thompson was rocked earlier in the fight and managed to recover. It’s easy for me to be critical in hindsight, but the officiating just wasn’t very good in this fight.

by Andy R on Jun 3, 2008 9:42 PM EDT reply actions