2009's Robbery of the Year and Other Awards
by Luke Thomas on Jan 17, 2010 12:30 PM EST
in MMA News
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There’s incompetency, and then there’s incompetency so appalling it wins awards.
Mixed martial arts pundits, fans and even UFC President Dana White himself often complain of the ineptitude pervasive in the various roles played in athletic commission officiating. White’s favorite target is veteran referee Steve Mazzagatti, but no dedicated observer of MMA will tell you the problems are isolated or the solutions simple to implement.
Every so often, however, an incident of amateurishness takes your breath away. Sherdog’s Robbery of the Year for 2009 is so painfully obvious that even other egregious examples of poor scoring this past year pale by comparison. Were we to somehow combine the horrendousness of Michihiro Omigawa’s "wins" over Marlon Sandro and Hatsu Hioki, we still could not touch what happened at an Ultimate Warrior Challenge event in Fairfax, Va., on Oct. 3....
By the time UWC 7 rolled around, local fan antipathy toward Beebe had crystallized heavy support for Easton. MMA fans across the area were dying to see Easton crush an opponent that would launch him into international relevance, especially one whom they believed had previously flaked on him to be a part of the first Dream featherweight grand prix; Beebe insists there was miscommunication.
The D.C. media got in on the hype, too. Easton had been making the rounds in print, radio and television outlets across town for what seemed like weeks -- a gigantic step for an athlete in a sport yet to be fully embraced by the local sports media.
The UWC 7 card not only featured Easton vs. Beebe but also arguably the most important North American flyweight fight in MMA history between Pat Runez and John Dodson. In other words, this was a serious event with a lot riding on the line.
But heading into the event, something was not right. Virginia’s athletic commission had set an ominous tone before the fights even started. Among a variety of other troubling infractions, the weigh-ins for the event were held with a scale that sat on a carpet, a completely inaccurate measurement of weight in a moment where precision is non-negotiable. Brazilian Felipe Arantes was even allowed to fight fellow countryman Freddy Assuncao with Shinya Aoki-esque shootboxing pants on despite such attire being completely banned by the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts.Despite these worrisome oversights, the UWC had no choice but to continue on. Fast forward to the main event. Easton entered the arena to local Washington, D.C., go-go music and raucous applause; Beebe to jeers and boos.
The fight began.
And the rest is history. Read the rest of the piece for thoughts about the fight from Kelly Crigger, Josh Gross, Michael David Smith and Sergio Non.
I also encourage you to take a look at the other awards: event of the year, round of the year (a personal favorite), comeback fighter of the year, beatdown of the year and more.
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Shogun vs Machida
Regardless of what everybody says I was at the Staples Center for UFC 104, never felt so sick to my stomach, machida? unanimous decision? Gimme a break!!!
by kchav21 on Jan 17, 2010 12:37 PM EST reply actions 3 recs
Sad part is, all the rankings still have Machida ranked above Shogun still.
Easton vs. Beebe was definitely a robbery, but the relevance of the fight is almost non-existent compared to a fight that demonstrates the top 205 fighter in the world. Beebe isn’t going to be claiming any serious accolades any time soon, even if he was given the win.
The other thing to consider is that the commission decided not to over-turn or even investigate the Easton/Beebe fight. Whereas one of the judges who voted for Machida has since changed his mind about who he thought won.
"That muscle contraction, that core strength that kind of happens, that pulls together when you’re maybe smoking weed or whatever, you know, you’re coughing or whatever ... I’m not a doctor or a fucking scientist, but I’ve smoked plenty of weed. And, you know, I think in my opinion it’s pretty damn good for you."
Sad part is, all the rankings still have Machida ranked above Shogun still.
Well…yeah…because Lyoto won.
If Shogun won and the consensus was that Lyoto was robbed I would still put Shogun over Lyoto in the rankings.
If Derek Jeter clubbed a baby seal on earth day while wearing a mink coat and crocodile skin boots while burning tires on an iceberg, the reaction would be "Its OK Derek, you’re a Yankee." -First mammal to wear pants
by Tonley on Jan 17, 2010 2:20 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
welllll ......NO
Lyoto did not win that fight.
by ThereWlLLbeBlood on Jan 17, 2010 5:10 PM EST up reply actions
As in who got the actual win on the record, yes Lyoto won. And I’m not being glib, I’m just saying that if you have rankings based mostly on results, the official winner of a fight between closely ranked fighters should be higher.
If Derek Jeter clubbed a baby seal on earth day while wearing a mink coat and crocodile skin boots while burning tires on an iceberg, the reaction would be "Its OK Derek, you’re a Yankee." -First mammal to wear pants
Not to mention
that one of the other judges had no place being there. Lets set aside the fact that Cecil Peoples is straight out awful at his job. Lets pretend he’s just a another judge who’s name we don’t recognize. To emphasize this, I will treat him as a hypothetical character named David in the block quote.
David has been a karate practitioner for 32 years, is a 8th degree black belt, and is an instructor as well. He is in the karate Hall of Fame. On his website, his name is always preempted by the word ‘sensei’. David obviously has strong ties to karate, both professional and emotional. And now you’re asking him to impartially score a fight featuring the premier (read: only significant) karateka in MMA? Alright, that’s a bit sketchy. Seems to be another tale of incompetence from the CSAC. But we don’t know who David is, he might be a real pro and do a good job. Then he scores the fight for the karateka. It was a bad decision, but maybe from his vantage point things looked different and he did the best job possible, right? We can excuse him personally based on an institutional error, such as poor seating and lack of monitors for judges. It’s an issue to be raised with each athletic commission, and not David’s fault. Until he comes out saying that leg kicks, the strength of muay thai and weakness of karate, do not count. And then falsely asserting that leg kicks do not end fights. Would David assert that Dan Evenson and Mike Patt have draws or no contests or DQs against Pat Barry and Brandon Vera respectively? Or that Yoshida was unharmed after totally not losing to Cro Cop? Or or perhaps he is just going to score fights by the rules and emphasis of his preferred discipline rather than Unified Rules of MMA. David openly displayed not only his own incompetence, but also corruption and favoritism. To allow him to ever score a fight again is a travesty in our sport, based his actions here.
And… back to reality. In this one isolated incident, Peoples proved and flaunted the fact that he does EVERYTHING you can intentionally do wrong as a judge… at once. If he came out and had a reason for saying Shogun lost, claiming Lyoto’s effectiveness in the clinch and throwing combos rather than one off leg kicks or something of that nature, we wouldn’t have the same problem. It would be a controversial decision, and in my opinion an absolutely incorrect one. But this isn’t how history happened. Cecil People is just fucking terrible and the sum of all the issues with his judging, combined with Doc Hamilton saying he was wrong, make Lyoto vs. Shogun a strong contender for Robbery of the Year. It makes the sport look completely disreputable.
And sorry for the rant. I kinda got on a roll mentally and didn’t want to stop, and think it’s too late to make a fanpost out of this. Apologies to the tl;dr people, but I’m not making you read this.
"Someone is WRONG on the internet. What do you want me to do? LEAVE? Then they'll keep being wrong!"
-Randall Munroe
by pdl on Jan 17, 2010 2:36 PM EST up reply actions 2 recs
ugh, first post and already bringing up the robbery that wasn’t a robbery.
Controversial or debatable decision does not equal robbery.
so your going to call...
…the biggest robbery in recent years a debatable decision??? LOL Ya OK …… You got your Machida t-shirt on while your typing it up?
by ThereWlLLbeBlood on Jan 17, 2010 5:12 PM EST up reply actions
it was a debatable decision.
neither fighter did enough to win that fight in my eyes. it was a close fight. you are acting like shogun dominated machida. neither fighter tried to finish that fight at any time really. if either one of you sounds like you are blinded by your love for a fighter its you.
You need to understand what a robbery is in the context of combat sports. First time I watched the fight I thought Shogun handily beat Machida. 2nd time around I thought Machida edged out the first 3. Very close fight that didn’t go the way you thought it would. Not a robbery.
If you read my post above
then you will see why the term robbery is applicable. One judge had no business being there due to conflict of interest, and another has since publicly admitted fault in his scoring based on an inability to see the action. That means only one competent judge called the fight for Machida, and that assumption of competency only comes from the fact that we don’t have any public statements to show that they are incompetent or their ability to perform was hampered by their view.
As things stand, Lyoto got a gift decision handed to him based on circumstances beyond non-biased, impartial, professional judging in combat sports. That constitutes a robbery to me.
"Someone is WRONG on the internet. What do you want me to do? LEAVE? Then they'll keep being wrong!"
-Randall Munroe
So “David” is a biased tard, and the other changed his opinion after the fact. Still doesn’t make it a robbery. Replace Peoples, and maybe that judge would have scored it for Machida as well. Controversial yes, robbery NO.
I think you're missing the point.
Peoples NEVER should have been chosen to judge that fight. Even without his history of incompetence, he had a huge conflict of interest. His presence at the judging table was an error even before the fight started. After the fight, he told everyone why he scored it the way he did… and it was biased bullshit based on untruths. Shogun never had a chance to win on his card, meaning that at decision time the best he could do is a split decision victory. He was robbed of 1/3 of the scorecards.
Then Doc Hamilton comes out and says he couldn’t see the action properly and had to sorta guess what happened and hope it was right. Upon seeing the broadcast of the event, he realized he scored the fight erroneously and has admitted his mistake. So on 2/3 scorecards, Shogun wasn’t given a fair chance to showcase ability or superiority to another combatant.
The third card… we know nothing about since they’ve stayed silent. I don’t even remember who the judge was. We can’t say anything about that one other than completely unsubstantiated speculation, so they can have the benefit of the doubt and we’ll assume they had a good view of the action and scored the fight properly based on the Unified Rules it was contested under.
Replace Peoples, and maybe that judge would have scored it for Machida as well. Controversial yes, robbery NO.
This is where I both agree and disagree with you. Big John could have judged that fight and maybe he would have scored it for Lyoto, maybe not. If he did then I’d have a whole lot less to say, and the decision would be much more reputable. But that’s not what happened. One judge was incompetent, biased, and is actively corrupting the sport. He’s the one who scored it. Another judge couldn’t see, guessed who did what, and has admitted he was mistaken. There was no opportunity for a fair decision to be read. Shogun’s best possible outcome from the fight if he couldn’t finish was a split decision loss. That my friend, is a robbery.
"Someone is WRONG on the internet. What do you want me to do? LEAVE? Then they'll keep being wrong!"
-Randall Munroe
I’m not missing your point, I just don’t think the scenario you’re describing constitutes a robbery. Peoples doesn’t put much value on leg kicks. Other judges place more and less value on different aspects. It’s a very subjective thing. Peoples is off his rocker with that notion, but I think you’re making a big assumption by claiming that Shogun had no chance to win on Peoples’ card. It was a close match where both fighters were basically point-fighting. Had Shogun actually dominated Machida, then Cecil could very well have scored it for him. The fact that Peoples scored 2 rounds for Shogun argues against the accusation. I don’t like Cecil Peoples either, so stop making me defend him!!
But since we’re making assumptions let me throw one out there. Maybe Doc Hamilton changed his mind after the fact because of the ridiculously vehement outcry aimed at him and the other judges by the hordes of “passionate” MMA fans. Maybe not. Maybe it contributed.
It sucks that there are factors that add fuel to the controversy, but the only way I could see it being a robbery was if Shogun decidedly won the fight, and they gave it to Machida.
Quite frankly, you're just wrong.
Your quote:
Peoples doesn’t put much value on leg kicks.
His quote:
You have to keep in mind we always the favor the fighter who is trying to finish the fight, and leg kicks certainly don’t do that.
Other Peoples quote:
Mauricio Rua was being aggressive but it wasn’t effective aggressiveness which is what we as the judges look for when scoring a fight
if you take a look at the judging criteria clean strikes are valued more-so than the quantity of strikes landed.
Unified rules quote:
Effective striking is judged by determining the total number of legal heavy strikes landed by a contestant.
More from Peoples:
Lyoto made Shogun come after him, he determined where the fight took place which in my opinion constitutes as effective Octagon control.
More from the Unified Rules:
(g) Fighting area control is judged by determining who is dictating the pace, location and position of the bout. Examples of factors to consider are countering a grappler’s attempt at takedown by remaining standing and legally striking ; taking down an opponent to force a ground fight; creating threatening submission attempts, passing the guard to achieve mount, and creating striking opportunities.
(h) Effective aggressiveness means moving forward and landing a legal strike.
(i) Effective defense means avoiding being struck, taken down or reversed while countering with offensive attacks
Quite frankly, neither exhibited huge amounts of control. Shogun is aggressive and moves forward all the time. Lyoto is defensive and moves away. You can equally say that each forced the other to react, but the truth is they both did exactly what they like to do. Shogun moved forward and landed strikes… more than Lyoto did. He admits that. That made him the effective aggressor as defined in the rules. Shogun fought to the rules, and did so very well. Regardless of that, People’s just valued the karateka’s style more because " If you don’t like it you can go to hell."
As for Hamilton changing his mind, none of us can say with absolute certainty that you are right or wrong, we aren’t in his head. I don’t believe it adds up though. He made the statement well after controversy had passed, which just doesn’t make sense if it was purely reactionary.
"Someone is WRONG on the internet. What do you want me to do? LEAVE? Then they'll keep being wrong!"
-Randall Munroe
Peoples is part and parcel to your argument
but he means nothing to mine. Despite his whackadoo notions, he actually scored the rounds correctly. Take him out of the equation and you still have Machida winning the remaining 2 cards.
As for Hamiton, a changed mind and “obstructed vision” isn’t a valid reason to negate Hamilton’s original decision. All the judges have obstructed fields of vision at times during the fight.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on this robbery thing. The guy who won the fight actually won the fight, imo.
the more I think about it, the more I appreciate the different tack you’ve taken. It’s not OMG Shogunz won that fight ROBBERY!, but the more abstract notion that Shogun was robbed of the opportunity to fight in a completely unbiased match with uniformly correct officiating. The problem is that I think it goes against the context of what most people consider a robbery. Also, the idea extends into other scenarios, like the ref stopping a fight too soon, or a fighter dominating on the ground but then getting stood up unnecessarily and getting KO’d. I know you’re focusing on biased judging, but it’s really all part of the same package. I think it’s too academic. The notion of robbery in my eyes (again) is when the clear winner does not get the victory. Or maybe I’m adding unwarranted nuance to your argument? Peoples or no Peoples, it was an extremely close fight.
—
What I also find interesting is that people get so excited about that fight, but if either of those guys fought their other opponents with the same strategy and execution, there would be no end to the criticism. It was shades of the old Lyoto that the masses loved to hate, and a cautious Shogun displaying no real intention to finish the fight. Smart strategy, but not really exciting except for the fact that he was actually landing strikes on Machida.
My main goal is a different approach.
We can pick apart each round, exchange, and individual strike from multiple angles in HD slow motion and still come to different conclusions. Judging is a fickle beast. I strongly disagree with the Couture vs. Vera decision, but I don’t consider it a robbery. I believe that Diaz beat Maynard 29-28, but I have no outrage over it. Kimbo vs. Houston was a draw on my cards, and even with the history of scandal around Kimbo fights I think it was a fair decision.
I believe wholeheartedly that Shogun beat Lyoto. I had floor seats at the Staples Center for it, and know what I saw. I watched the broadcast later, with and without commentary, and know what I saw. Arguing that point is moot.
Shogun was done a great disservice and injustice by the CSAC that night. Maybe you are correct in saying that it’s not the standard definition of robbery, but I find the term applicable. You can say the decision was correct, but he was absolutely robbed of opportunity.
On top of that, the fiasco is head and shoulders above the other issues of the year. It’s not just inexperienced and untested Virginians mucking things up. Strikeforce is based in California. WEC is there all the time. UFC has had events there multiple times. This was at best a display of amateurism and at worst corruption from a state with a very significant MMA presence. The way things played out is just inexcusable, regardless of who won.
--
I think the reason for the excitement for the fight itself is that it was arguably one of the most technical bouts in MMA history. Shogun’s striking has never looked better and his defense has improved leaps and bounds since the Pride days (read: now he uses defense). His movement and strategy were a thing of beauty. He executed the almost laughable Greg Jackson plan of “countering the counters,” but UDL figured out how to actually do it. Lyoto is one of the best strikers in the sport thanks to his unorthodox style and impregnable takedown defense. It was a hard fought battle between the two top athletes in the deepest and most competitive division our sport has yet known. Epic.
"Someone is WRONG on the internet. What do you want me to do? LEAVE? Then they'll keep being wrong!"
-Randall Munroe
wouldn’t shogun/machida be the bigger robbery, cause it is more relevant.
by kanodogg on Jan 17, 2010 1:00 PM EST reply actions 2 recs
Wow, Lesnar/Mir II Beatdown of the Year? What a joke. BJ vs. Diego is much more worthy, just to name one.
"That muscle contraction, that core strength that kind of happens, that pulls together when you’re maybe smoking weed or whatever, you know, you’re coughing or whatever ... I’m not a doctor or a fucking scientist, but I’ve smoked plenty of weed. And, you know, I think in my opinion it’s pretty damn good for you." MMAPlayground Profile
For the record
I did not select this as the top robbery, although I obviously agree. But just so it’s clear: all of these awards are selected by the Sherdog.com staff. They asked me to offer this contribution.
Follow me on Twitter: @MMANation.
It was because of a fantastic Sherdog piece you did a while back that introduced me to BE (http://www.sherdog.com/news/articles/1/Winners-and-Losers-UFC-91-15210).
I really appreciate the cross promotion and cooperation between the major sites; everyone wins.
by casey manrique on Jan 17, 2010 2:39 PM EST up reply actions
Interesting.
It’s comforting to know that Sherdog staff doesn’t care about picking the high profile UFC fight over a regional one that most people don’t know/care about. Good showing by them
I believe I said it before, but it bears repeating. Thank you for chronicling the giant fustercluck that is Virginia’s athletic commission and sharing it with the community. It raised my awareness of something I might have barely known about otherwise. And I wholeheartedly believe that the stir created, fueled by your passion and honesty, is responsible for the lack of [significant] controversy at the last Fight Night card. I know this sounds like ass kissing, but it takes people like you with a platform like BE and Sherdog to force change and improvement in the sport.
"Someone is WRONG on the internet. What do you want me to do? LEAVE? Then they'll keep being wrong!"
-Randall Munroe
What was your #1 Robbery?
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. -Samuel Beckett
by Scott C. Broussard on Jan 17, 2010 4:18 PM EST up reply actions
November 6th armored car robbery in Lyon, France. Made off with 11 million Euros in cash.
by John Nash on Jan 17, 2010 5:34 PM EST via mobile up reply actions 1 recs
There’s something that bothers me about this. Is incompetency even a word? I thought it was just “incompetence,”
As it relates to jobs or responsibilities
Yes. In general senses, it doesn’t really apply.
Follow me on Twitter: @MMANation.
I would also really like to see this fight.
I hate having to take everyone elses word that this is such a huge robbery.
Robbery of the year was...
when Shogun got robbed for the belt….. i dont know if you guys are trying to play dumb or something, but if you dont think that was the robbery of the year…. then you guys are writing the wrong articles.
by ThereWlLLbeBlood on Jan 17, 2010 5:09 PM EST reply actions
A robbery is when there is no way a fight could have been intelligently scored the way it was.
Many well-defended cases have been made favoring Machida in that fight.
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. -Samuel Beckett
by Scott C. Broussard on Jan 17, 2010 7:40 PM EST up reply actions
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