Toby Imada Robbed of $100,000 and a Title Shot at Bellator XXI
by Brian Hemminger on Jun 11, 2010 1:29 PM EDT
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I was very disappointed that Toby Imada lost a split decision last night to lose the lightweight tournament final to Pat Curran, but what really set me over the edge was the Bellator press release that focused on Curran's "Cinderella story" without even acknowledging the controversy behind his victory.
The controversy I'm talking about is the fact that Imada clearly won the fight. Throughout the entire three round affair, it was Imada, not Curran who was pressing the action. Imada continuously moved forward throwing punches and kicks until he could back Curran against the fence. Once there he unloaded many knees to Curran's midsection and legs. Imada was also successful on 3 takedown attempts, although Curran quickly got back to his feet afterwards.
There are fighters out there who can win a fight by backing up, Lyoto Machida for example, but he does that by completely avoiding damage while inflicting some of his own. Curran was eating lots of punches and knees throughout the fight, and while he did land a couple of the hardest punches of the fight, that does not make up for losing the battle of cage control. Time and time again Imada would have Curran pressed against the fence in a body lock throwing knees and Curran appeared defenseless to stop it.
Curran's best offense came in the third round when he rocked Imada with a hook that opened up a big cut on his eyebrow as well as nearly swelling his eye shut. What happened next baffled me. With Imada backing up against the cage in a defensive position for the first time all night, Curran stopped attacking and backed off into the center of the cage. At the time myself, the announcer Jimmy Smith as well as nearly everyone in attendance had the first 2 rounds 20-18 for Imada so we were all wondering "why the hell is he not trying to end the fight when he's about to lose a decision, does he know something we don't?"
Apparently so, because after the fight concluded, the cage announcer stated that there was a split decision. I was appalled by the fact that any judge had sided with Curran at all, but then they announced that Curran had won the fight. I was angry, so were many commenters on all the websites covering the event. I'm sure Bellator received more than it's share of angry questions to it's facebook and twitter accounts as well.
Our very own Brent Brookhouse couldn't have said it any better:
That ranks among the worst decisions I have ever seen in my life. That is so ungodly bad I have no words.
You know it's bad decision when you are fighting in front of a hometown crowd, and even they boo the decision when you win. That's what happened to Curran. Bellator tried to do some damage control by playing up the story of Curran who had been the underdog throughout the tournament defeating GSP training partner Mike Ricci as well as the much lauded Roger Huerta in the semi-finals but that didn't make up for this.
Toby Imada deserved that victory. He deserved that $100,000 grand prize and he most definitely deserved another chance at Bellator lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez. Bellator made it up to Ryan Thomas after he was screwed over by the referee in his first round fight against Ben Askren. I can only hope that they make it up to Toby Imada somehow, who's interview quote was a self-defeated theme we continue to hear time and time again.
"That’s what I get for leaving it up to the judges."
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People don't actually believe Curran won that fight do they?
I see 4 votes for that option…..3 must be the judges, but who is the other guy?
Yeah but....
the two rounds that Imada won were pretty dominant. The round Curran won was close. It was far from a close fight. Only my opinion, of course.
by Brandon Starr on Jun 11, 2010 2:17 PM EDT up reply actions
Granted
I did get that out of a re-watch. The first time I watched the fight, I thought it was all Imada as well.
http://www.twitter.com/TB_Money
Yeah...
I just felt that if Imada wanted it standing, then they fought standing with Imada getting (overall) the better of the exchanges (yes, Curran had a couple powerful shots there). If Imada wanted it against the cage, they fought against the cage with Imada fucking his legs and body up pretty good. Even threw in some takedowns for good measure. His face looked bad after the fight but it always does. Dudes skin must be paper thin.
I know you’re not arguing about Imada winning but I really didn’t think it was close, like, at all.
by Brandon Starr on Jun 11, 2010 2:29 PM EDT up reply actions
I agree about the third
Just because Curran landed his hardest punch of the night in the third that cut Imada doesn’t automatically give him the round. Imada also put Curran in the Muay Thai clinch that round and kneed him 3 times. He also had a very nice toss to get Curran to the ground as well in the third. He was a true warrior, continuing to move forward even though his right eye was pretty messed up.
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by Brian Hemminger on Jun 11, 2010 2:35 PM EDT up reply actions
Rewatch
Watched it again. Imada clearly won. Not only that, but after the fight Curran looks at the ground and shakes his head, obviously aware of the fact he just lost the fight.
I think Imada won
But I don’t think it was a robbery, or even a bad decision. It was a close, split decision- Curran did way more damage to Imada, even though Imada landed more shots and hit a few takedowns.
Course, I bet on Curran. I called out a decision win for Imada, but wasn’t surprised when it was a split. Even less surprised when Curran won, I just thought ah…MMA judging…
by Body Triangle on Jun 14, 2010 9:34 AM EDT up reply actions
Sucks for Imada
But Alvarez is gonna put dukes on Curran
Inhale deep, like the words of my breath—I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death
He'd better
It’d be the only way to even remotely make up for Imada getting screwed. I passed out last night before the post-fight press conference that they stream on Bellator.com I really wish I’d been able to hear all the questions thrown at them about the decision because they aren’t even mentioning it in any of their articles.
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by Brian Hemminger on Jun 11, 2010 2:47 PM EDT up reply actions
I mean, it’s hard to deal with this situation. If you’re an upstart org like this, the judges’ mistake makes you look bad even though it was out of their hands. I know it’d be nice for Bellator to get out in front of the situation, but they can’t win here.
The best way things could shake out is Alvarez brings the pain on Curran and then they give Imada a title shot after that.
Inhale deep, like the words of my breath—I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death
by Anthony Pace on Jun 11, 2010 2:54 PM EDT up reply actions
I didn’t think this fight was remotely close. I watched it without being able to listen to the in-fight commentary, but thought to myself the whole time that Curran was the most frustrating guy to watch fight. He never attacked at all, which was annoying since he is a skilled guy. I couldn’t believe the decision.
I thought Curran won the last two rounds
I’m very surprised people are reacting this way.
Curran landed much more effective strikes in the last two rounds.
you mean
Curran landed one good punch in the second and one good punch in the third. Two strong punches doesn’t mean effective strikes.
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by Brian Hemminger on Jun 11, 2010 3:12 PM EDT up reply actions
Ken Shamrock changed Royce Gracie’s whole life with one punch at UFC 5…
"The best book on the real history of MMA that I've seen," Dave Meltzer
by Jonathan Snowden on Jun 11, 2010 3:34 PM EDT up reply actions
ok I understand if it was a knockout punch
But he didn’t knock him out. He had a chance to if he had pressed the action in the third after his nice punch, but he backed off for no reason. After that punch, Imada put him in a Muay Thai clinch and barraged him with knees. It may not have opened up Curran like the punch did to Imada but it was as effective.
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by Brian Hemminger on Jun 11, 2010 3:38 PM EDT up reply actions
I know that
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by Brian Hemminger on Jun 11, 2010 10:35 PM EDT up reply actions
Yeah, sure, we’ve heard that one before. What really blows is that there are so effing many questionable decisions even on the highest levels of the sport that not leaving the fight to the judges has become something everyone is getting used to within the sport. Imagine the screaming if such clear bias started showing up in more established sport as regularly as it does within MMA?
by Monday Morning Martial Artist on Jun 11, 2010 5:12 PM EDT up reply actions
That's the problem with combat sports
It’s based on human judging. There really isn’t anything comparable in football, baseball or basketball. Sure, refs/umps make bad decisions but they rarely decide the outcome.
But if you think MMA is bad, check out gymnastics and ice skating. It’s common knowledge and almost accepted that judges are bought or are just flat out biased.
I feel that line is completely absurd. For one, it puts all the fault in the fighter now as if the fighter somehow did something wrong. I fighter like Jason Brilz can fight his @$$ off against Rogerio Nogueira, but somehow it is his fault for losing because he left it to the judges? That to me is just ridiculous. The other thing is that these organizations, especially the UFC, are just putting their hands up and just making this the norm instead of doing anything to change this. While these MMA organizations may not be able to do anything about it, they could make it clear that these terrible decisions are wrong instead of making it seem like it is the norm and ingraining the fans into this mentality that this is something that should almost be expected.
by chrisbboy82 on Jun 13, 2010 11:33 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
They aren’t saying it to try to pass the blame on the fighters it is a warning to the fighters that you can’t trust the judges to decide in your favor. The only way to be 100% sure you will get the victory is to finish the fight because judging can be unpredictable. Organizations do make an issue of bad decisions, heck Dana White will be the first to tell you if he thinks one is bad, but even Dana’s opinion only carries so much weight with athletic commissions which for decades have been focused on boxing. Heck one of the things organizations and coaches do to make sure the issue gets attention is to publically tell fighters not to leave it in the judges hands, that statement gets people’s attention.
by who me on Jun 13, 2010 12:51 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
They may not be trying to pass the blame on the fighters with this statement, but that is what it ends up doing. Using the Brilz example, he fights his butt off, and the response is that he left it to the judges. That response ends up putting some of the blame on him even if that is not what was the intention, like it was partly Brilz’s fault for it going to a decision. It is unfortunate that Dana and co. don’t carry much weight to change this. I guess that I am frustrated that this is somehow being accepted as the norm, and the tag line of : Don’t leave the fight to the hands of the judges" just supports that norm to me, like it should just be expected and that there is nothing anyone could do about it.
MMA uses a boxing system that is implemented by athletic commissions that are primarily focused on boxing. Things are getting better but this is something that isn’t going to change overnight. It will be a slow incremental change, as the sport gets more popular more MMA-centric judges will get involved with the sport and things will slowly change. Until then a fighter really is taking his chances when he leaves it in the judges hands, who knows how those boxing judges are going to score a MMA fight? Yes it’s terrible that they have to tell guys not to leave it in the judges hands but that is a completely truthful statement to make.
This is Dana talking about refs but it is the same issue with judging too:
ARIEL HELWANI: "Here’s the thing, though. I know you always say it’s up to the commission, right? And ultimately it is up to the commission. You get new media and new fans they just point the finger at you and the UFC and they say, look at these refs, they don’t know what they’re doing, so in some ways like it’s this cloud hanging over your events. So what can you do, if anything, to rectify it?"
DANA WHITE: "It’s true and it’s weird that it’s happening to us because in boxing everybody knew the referees had nothing to do with them. You still get that stuff like Don King paid the ref. Let me tell you what — the refs and the athletic commissions [couldn’t] give a [expletive] what I think. They don’t care, you know, I try to give them my input all the time. I’m very public about how I feel about fights and how I feel about referees but it does not good, man, I don’t know what else to do."
http://www.fightopinion.com/2010/06/13/ufc-dana-white-referees-judges/
It was all of Britz fault that that fight went to the judges. He had a chance to finish a fight and didnt take it! Who else are we suppose to blame? Britz chose to let the judges pick a winner instead of showing why he was the better fighter.
Judging does need to improve but it will never be perfect. A fight is so hard to judge with so many things to look at while watching a fight. They do need to write separate system for MMA and not use the 10 point must system.
by Darren Watkins on Jun 14, 2010 9:34 AM EDT up reply actions
I clearly remember Brilz getting what looked like a nearly fight-ending guillotine in the second round, so I don’t see how applying a guillotine is NOT a way to finish the fight. Brilz didn’t choose to take it to the judges because he obviously fought his butt off, and Brilz is one example of many other fights. Brilz wasn’t just coasting at any point during the fight.
At the end of the second he didnt attack and let the bell ring when little nog was hurt. He chose to go to the 3rd. I am not saying i agree with the judges but as a fighter dont leave it in the judges hand!!! This is not a hard concept and some blame needs to be put on the fighter. NO judging will ever be perfect, so the best way to ensure a win is to finish the fight!
by Darren Watkins on Jun 14, 2010 2:37 PM EDT up reply actions
I felt sick for Imada he put on a great performance and not only earned the big payday but another shot at Alvarez. On the other hand Curran looked like he went to the Florian and Sherk school of horrible gameplans seriously what the fuck was he doing in that fight. I swear these fucking judges need to be banned from the sport when they pull stuff like this it’s disgusting.
"they mad at me, I keep going hard reppin/
cause what's your Rampage to Rashad Evans/"
-Joe Budden (Something To Ride To)
http://www.zshare.net/audio/76866807deabe3c1/
that press release makes me love the ufc
dana white would never ever ever have released something like that
he woulda gone on record saying howthe decision sucks and given imada a 100k check for winning the fight
this fight was one of the worst decisions ive ever seen it goes in the hammill bisping category of bad
We have a saying back home that if your coming on, COME ON!!!!
my thoughts exactly
I was seriously waiting for someone, anyone to say something about how awful the decision was but they decided to toe the company line instead.
follow me twitter.com/GotaHemmi
by Brian Hemminger on Jun 11, 2010 6:50 PM EDT up reply actions
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