Matt Mitrione hung with Travis Browne through round one before an eye poke in the waning moments of the round. He suffered another eye poke in the second, but kept the fight close enough through the end of the round. (Mitrione and Browne landed a near identical number of strikes through two, though all three judges had the bout 20-18 for Browne.) He fell behind in the third, however, with Browne slamming him to the mat before punching him out from mount.
Browne addressed his intent at the post-fight press conference: “I’m not a dirty fighter, and even in the fight, I’m like, ‘Matt, I’m really sorry. I promise you I’m not trying to do that (on purpose).’”
Regardless of intent, an eye poke should garner punishment on the first offense. An eye poke is unlike a strike to the groin. The latter is often the result of a legitimate attack that lands off the mark due to the defensive maneuvering of the opponent. The vast majority of eye pokes, however, occur because a fighter extends his arm with the fingers dangling.
By taking a point away for a first offense, you immediately incentivize fighters to either close the fingers or the fist at all times, which should reduce the number of eye pokes. There’s an counter argument that taking a point for a first offense is too harsh a punishment in a three-round fight. (This is also an argument for more five-round fights.) The compromise, then, is to hand out half-point deductions.
A half-point deduction serves two functions. First, it provides as a real, tangible punishment for the offender. It will hardly ever come into play, but a 28-28 card now becomes a 28-27.5 card. Second, it takes the decision out of a referee’s hands. No longer will an official be forced to make a potentially fight-changing decision in the moment. First offense: half point. Second offense: another half point. Third offense: another full point (or disqualification?).
Some have blamed referee Gary Forman for not taking action, but he’s operating in an environment where fouls very rarely wind up as sanctioned infractions. The athletic commissions need to make a concerted reform effort that involves both modifications of the ruleset and instruction to its officials.
* * *
When you gaze at the stars, you’re actually looking into the past. Light travels fast, but it still takes time to reach your eyes across the vast distances of our universe. We see the stars visible with the naked eye as they were some 10,000 years ago. Even the light with our Sun takes eight minutes to reach Earth. (That is, if the Sun blew up right now, we wouldn’t see it for another eight minutes.)
In that same vein, watching Ed Herman fight is like gazing into the past. Herman appeared on The Ultimate Fighter 3 ten years ago, losing to Kendall Grove in the finals. Grove washed out of the UFC in 2011 (coincidentally after a loss to Tim Boetsch), resurfacing in Bellator a few years ago after bouncing around the regionals. Yet Herman still finds himself on the big show, arguably through sheer dumb luck.
The UFC cut Grove with a 7-6 UFC record. At the same time, Herman went 4-5 in the UFC. He rattled off three straight wins before having a loss against Jake Shields overturned. (Shields tested positive for a diuretic.) He went 2-3 after that, which means he was 9-8 (with 1 no contest) heading into last night’s fight with Tim Boetsch, which he won by TKO. It’s not as if Herman has any truly signature wins. Boetsch joins names like Rafael Natal, Kyle Noke, and Tim Credeur as candidates for Ed Herman’s Best Win.
Herman is a throwback to the mid-aughts: wrestleboxer, Team Quest, relatively unathletic (especially compared to his current-day peers). His game hasn’t gone through any wholesale evolution. He’s done just enough to keep his job: beat the guys you’re supposed to beat, look competitive enough in your losses, and earn a performance bonus here and there along the way. At 35, he’s not long for the UFC, though he’s likely been on borrowed time for years.
* * *
With tennis dealing with a match-fixing scandal, here’s a snippet on an old piece about potential fight-fixing in the UFC:
Let’s take John Alessio* for example. Alessio fought on the preliminary card of UFC 148, a huge pay-per-view event headlined by Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen. Alessio is 33 years old. He’s fought MMA since 1998, and had compiled a 34-15 record to that point. He appeared in the UFC a handful of times over the last decade-plus, and had lost in his most recent fight against Mark Bocek at UFC 145. According to Best Fight Odds, Alessio closed as a +150 underdog to Shane Roller. He lost, and made $10,000 in base pay.
How much would it take to bribe Alessio? If he averaged $10,000 for every fight in his career, you could offer him $1MM and double his career earnings. He has a wife and kid to think about, and being closer to 40 than 20, the idea of not fighting anymore is probably starting to creep in.
There are guys like this on almost every card. Fighters making anywhere from $8,000 to $20,000 to fight, pre-tax and before paying out his manager, agent, trainers, training partners, etc. Veterans knowing retirement lurks on the end of an unseen left hook. Smart, self-aware athletes who know their limits, know they’ve peaked, and want to move on from getting punched in the face for a paycheck.
* – I want to make clear that I am not accusing John Alessio of any wrongdoing.
