BTG 197 - Crime and Punishment

Hello and welcome to breaking the guard. Uh today's episode I'll talk a little bit about the past UFC fight night in Aabaijan Baku. The the main event I called Riot. uh the co-main there was some controversy there between Michelle Pereira and Shara Bullet and the fight didn't go the way a lot of people expected on the from the start with Machel scoring a quick knockdown uh with a solid right hand but he didn't really capitalize on the ground. I'm not sure what was going on because he clearly heard him enough for him for Bullet to concede bottom position and not really trying to stand up. He was also very busy on bottom throwing lots of up kicks and punches and elbows whereas Michelle didn't seem to figure out a way to get around the legs. And besides the first salvo punches that he threw, which looked solid, he landed a head shot, landed a couple body shots, he then kind of stopped and didn't really do much. So even though he won the round by control, he didn't really capitalize on the advantage. Any of the head damage, you know, that dropped bullet was erased. Uh wasted opportunity when to me like I was thinking like is Mattel going to grapple with him and try to control and dominate? He didn't. And he had a great opportunity because Bullet was not trying to stand up. He was just trying to defend himself off his back, which to me says he got hurt pretty bad and he needed to rest. And if you fail to put pressure when somebody's hurt, man, that's a now you're going to have to fight them fresh on their domain, which is standing. But the controversy was after the knockdown Mitchell starts getting on top of him, getting close, head down, and starts throwing punches, and Bullet starts grabbing Mitchell's ponytail, which he has like in a little samurai button type thing. Herb Dean calls it like gives him a soft warning like, "Hey, stop doing that." He grabs it again. "Hey, stop doing that." He grabs it a third time and then he does a formal break to give a hard warning. I suppose to me and many other people that's a minus point. That's a flagrant foul. It's one thing. You can make the case for an eye gouge being accidental. I don't think so. But you can make the case for it a lot better. You can make the case for kicks to the groin. That one I see a lot more feasible. You know, you're trying to throw the inside kick. It comes a little high or he steps in and now the kick went into his nuts, right? Like, but grabbing someone's from the top of their head here. There is no plausible reason you would be doing that except to cheat. There's nothing that you could normally grab at the top of the head, right? The back of the neck. Sure, you could say, "Oh, I was trying to reach and grab his neck, but instead, you know, I closed my fist and oh, his hair was there." But no, it was here. It was like right at the top of, you know, of his head. That's not a grabbing point unless you're trying to grab his hair. So, the fact that he was able to do it three times, got a stop to the action without any penalty is absurd to me. And I think the the warning should have been with the first two times that he swatted this guy's hands and he kept doing it. The third one should have been minus. And you might think, "Oh, that's harsh, you know." Well, in round three during a grappling scramble, he eye gouged Mitchell Pereira and he got another warning. So, he never got penalized uh a minus point and that would have changed the outcome of the fight because round two was clearly bullets round. Mitchel completely took his foot off the gas and allowed Mitchell to score a lot of kicks. And round three, I think Bullet won as well. Uh not as good as round two, but enough where for sure he won the round. So two rounds to one, you put the minus point, it's a one to one, it's a draw. Why do we have the minus points if we're never going to use them? And to me, this is a clear-cut case of when the minus point should have been used, which was in my opinion on the hairpool. If the referee swats your hands twice and you go for a third grab on something that does not happen accidentally, I can't recall the last time this has happened in the UFC in recent history. What this reminded me of was Hoist Gracie and Kim Leopoldo. We're talking about like over 20 years ago when it was legal and hoist pulled out some chunks of hair and it also helped them to sit at the triangle if my memory serves me correctly. But it was legal back then so it made sense to grab the hair. I can't recall anybody else in modern UFC history getting called for a hairpool. So to me that's one of those flagrant fouls like that's not excusable like no you cheated and we're going to call you for it minus point. So the fact that Herbine not only didn't do it on that, but then when he scored an additional foul of an eye gouge, he's still like, "Oh, another warning." Like, "Oh, we're just going to keep warning you." And there is an argument to be made that this was inaban and and you know, in the Middle East, Shara was a big favorite there. A lot of crowd uh support on his side. Michelle got booed every time he took time for a foul. You can make the case that Herb Dean felt pressured and didn't want to call a foul because he would get booed and maybe piss off people in that area. Either way, in my opinion, unacceptable. That should be called. And I know I've done a podcast already about fouls, so I don't want to go too far into the weeds here, but it's just irritating because they're not stopping. The fouls are still coming in. We're still getting plenty of eye gouges. It's such an easy in my opinion pretty easy to stop just someone has to have the again the athletic commissions. Where are they at? Like why are we allowing this to happen? You call in my opinion I believe harsh punishments are deserved for any type of trespass or foul. I believe this in society as well. I think, for example, in the in the US, we're very soft on crime. And I think that's why there is a considerable amount of uh recidivism, you know, as far as people continuously getting arrested and going back to jail because the penalties are not harsh enough. I'm old school. I think you steal or shoplift, lose a hand. You steal again, you lose the other hand, problem solved. You're not stealing anymore. You got no hands. And you might say, "Oh man, that's so that's so harsh." And like, "Yeah, but the first few people who, you know, f around, they're going to find out. And everybody else is going to figure out pretty quickly, you know what? The bag of chips is not worth losing a hand for. And eventually that type of stuff is going to go away. And if you are making these same type of choices despite the harshness of punishments, well then it's kind of a natural selection process, at least in my opinion. So you could disagree with me on that and that's fine. But that same thought, that same, you know, idea I bring into the sports. If we say you I g out somebody and boom, right away hard foul minus point. I watch fouls disappear from the sport. They're going to become very very rare. And I'll tell you why. Because they're mostly on purpose, right? I've made this argument before. In training, we're fighting a lot more than we fight in competition. And I can count the number of times I've out I eye out somebody on one hand over the course of 30 years. So it doesn't really happen. Now may I I think it's a combination of one technical skill issue and two purposely cheating. Right? If you train, you would know that. In my opinion, it's just if it was that common like we see it in the sport, opthalmologists would be just booking their their studios right next to martial arts gyms and just having a non-stop flow of people getting, you know, cornea detachments or scratches and whatnot because it's just it happens all the time. you know, if it happens like at least once or twice at every UFC card, you know, which is eight fights. Imagine the amount of sparring matches that you have in a martial arts studio, you know, on a daily basis. You know, we're talking about 50, 60, 70 matches at least. Man, there's going to be at least 10 I gouches a day going on. So, it doesn't pass a a reasonable test as far as people getting I gouged continually, right? It's it's it's what happens is when you know that the penalty is not there, it's not really a consequence. So, it might be illegal, but you can get away with it. So, do it. It's similar to how when you make a fine for something, let's say like, uh, your illegal parking ticket here, it's 50 bucks. that is not enforcing that very well. All that's doing is setting a barrier on who can afford to do that. Right? If I'm a billionaire, then I could just park wherever I want. It's $50. Yeah, it's nothing to me. And everybody else can't, right? Because, you know, $50 is a lot to them. But again, if you're a billionaire, that fight means nothing. And I feel that's kind of the same analogous situation here where like the foul is just like, "Oh, bad boy, no penalty." Well, then I don't mind being called the bad guy. I'll just keep doing it and I'm going to keep winning fights because the downstream effect is not as measurable, right? Like when someone gets eye gouged, spectators don't really understand like, man, this really impairs somebody and it will affect the result of the fight. You know, in this fight in particular, not really, right? I think Michelle dropped the ball here and, you know, I've trained with him. He's a nice guy. Uh, but he dropped the ball, right? He didn't press his advantage in round one and he let the fight slip away from him. So him losing this is not the biggest crime in the world in my opinion. Now did bullet foul absolutely. Did he deserve to get a minus point in my book? 100%. I would have called this a draw. It would have not said like who was the better fighter. I the foul that he did honestly I don't know if it really made that much of a difference on the outcome of the fight as far as pulling the hair. The eye gouge happened late in round three. Again, I don't really think it made a significant impact on the fight from that standpoint. So, are the were these fouls like serious? No. But they were flagrant. So to me it should have been called and the the outcome of a draw should have been a slap in the face to bullet like hey stop being a cheater, right? You could have easily won this fight if you didn't cheat and you didn't even need to cheat. That's my take on that. And I just feel on on a broader topic that the consequences do have to be harder, right? Like I just feel like if you're not going to give steep punishments for things, the the disincentive doesn't exist, right? Like people will do it. You and I like the same analogy I gave like, oh, you know, like for a billionaire parking ticket means nothing. You could say the same thing to somebody like, oh, you know, if you go and commit this horrendous crime, you're only going to get like 3, five years. to a normal person, man, that's a lot. I would never want to go to jail. But to somebody who's already been in the system, like, yeah, I could do that again. It's worth it. I'll trade that. So, when you have somebody who's going to do s something like that repeatedly, you're failing with your your punishment system because it's not a disincentive anymore. You're just going to bar certain people from doing it. Like if we're going from this perspective to me, that's like law-abiding citizens are going to be fine. You know, they're they're not going to trespass. That the idea of just being in jail is enough to terrify them. But somebody who has already been in jail probably not a big deal to them. Maybe they want to go back in there. So it's like, you know, another three, five years. What's that to me? And it has to be harsh. And I I think if you're afraid to crack the eggs that need that are needed to make an omelette, you're not going to be able to have anything to eat. So, I'm getting a little, you know, off topic politically, but I feel just in general when we're talking about making punishments and also just what the point of them are is really like if I go for example, what's the point in in my opinion of our current justice system, Right? To me, the punishment is not about revenge or, you know, getting back at somebody. If you think about it, if somebody, you know, kills a loved one from a drunk driving incident, for example, there's no revenge. You're never getting that back. It doesn't matter what you take from that person, right? Like, you still lost a loved one, and there's no replacing that. So, it's not about revenge, right? And if that's where you're going at, then you're I think your mind's in the wrong place. To me, it's about is it possible to reform this individual who made this trespass so that they could be functional in society and correspond with the rules. That's it. If the answer is no, again, I'm harsh. In my opinion, there's no place for you in our society. Even for something small as somebody just likes to shoplift and they can't stop themselves from shoplifting. They've gone to jail three times, they still shoplift. You're not playing by the rules and you're hurting other people in the process. Like I don't know where to put you, but it can't be in among other law-abiding citizens. So the the point of you know prison to me is not about you know punishing somebody. It's about reforming somebody. Now obviously we're nowhere near that I think in our current uh system. So it's I feel it's pretty broken. But if we turn this back around to the sport, what is the point of calling fouls if you're not going to do anything and put any teeth behind it, right? Because the whole point is to disenourage fouls from h ever happening to begin with. And the only way that has quote unquote teeth is that the punishment is harsh. Someone does an eye gouge, maybe you give them a hard warning once, they do it again, minus warning. It doesn't matter if it was accidental or not. It's your weapons, you're using them, you're responsible for it. It's just like in the real world. If I go around shooting my gun everywhere and I accidentally shoot a kid, doesn't matter. Well, it was an accident. Well, no, that was my action that did that. I'm my fault for it. It doesn't matter if it was accident or not, right? And I have to pay the consequences for that cuz I was reckless. Same thing in fighting. I have weapons. I'm throwing them around recklessly. Even if I accidentally hurt somebody, I'm still responsible for that. And I still have to pay the price for it. Because if we have those penalties harsh, people are going to be a lot more careful about how they use them. And like I said, if they ever do it, they ever get the balls to go hard on the the punishments in the sport, just watch how magically people stop fouling all of a sudden. Like now it's not as common, right? It's a it's a rarity. And that will to me that would prove the point, at least what I believe about it, which is it's mostly on purpose, right? I mean it's in like you we could fingerpoint MMA but it happens in every sport. Uh typically we see it from the other side though like if you soccer and basketball now or they pretend to be hurt more than they are to play up this angle, right? Like in basketball's famous like someone gets their ear flicked and they fall around and they have to be carried out in the stretcher because they're just trying to get somebody red carded and get them out of the game. We obviously don't want that to happen and I don't think that is a big threat in our sport just because of what it is. It's fighting. There's a lot of pride in the line. It's very rare where somebody is going to take a shot and play it up to win by foul. Not sure that's happened in recent memory. I'm sure it has or at least the allegation of it has. It's not very common. I mean, we've had fighters fouled that that didn't take advantage of fouls, you know, and uh they could have won title fights and stuff and they didn't, you know, they had pride and they wanted to win because they actually won, not because of technicality. So I I don't feel that is a big threat in MMA or grappling for that matter or well maybe grappling they do that the reaping in IBJF it's pretty well it's not pretty it is you know playing that same angle where you know someone gets the reap and the guy goes grabs his knee like nothing happened dude like we obviously don't so that I feel like you have to penalize the other way where if someone's faking an injury that's obvious. No, that you're you're not only cheating but you're breaking the spirit of the sport and the rule. And I feel those are also similar consequences. You get caught that boom, you're banned from the competition. Guess what? Not a lot of people are going to want to try that because, you know, if you're going to just try to get a cheap win off some weird technicality that doesn't exist and you get banned from ever competing again, you're probably not going to do that anymore. Same thing with the drug testing, right? You get caught once cheating, lifetime ban, boom. You think a lot of people are now going to play around? Probably not. or if they are, they're gonna have to spend a good amount of money to, you know, get the right algorithms to, you know, get around them, which people are. But if we can make it harder and more expensive to the point where it doesn't become financially feasible, then maybe they would stop, right? So that's all I'm saying. I I think the consequences for actions have to be severe. Otherwise, it's not going to be respected. And this doesn't have to be for everything, but it has to be for the issues that are recurring that are getting trampled on. And like in our sport, in my opinion right now, eye gouging groin shots are just way too common. The punishments have to be much more severe. And I've already gone a lot longer than I wanted to, but I got sucked into it. I I've made a whole podcast about how I would do this. So, if you look back at my podcast, you'll see there's one recently where I said exactly the criteria. So, this is just echoing that and just giving a broader statement of my overall philosophy as far as how I would deal with consequences on any issue, not just in sport. It's the same ideology which is I don't want to encourage people to do things that are bad that are going to hurt our society, our people, our sport. So the consequence has to be harsh enough where it terrifies you to want to do it or that by doing it you will won't ever be able to do it again. It just you won't even have the capability. You know, I I think that's it's harsh. It's not it's not a mother's loving touch. It's a very harsh penalty. But the idea is I never want you to test the boundary, right? Like there are certain things that we don't want boundaries to be tested. You know, small children, they're going to always play around and they they're going to test the boundaries of the parents. And if you allow them to run around on you, they're going to trample all over you. And adults and all sorts of people will do the same thing, right? But when you give a firm boundary, I remember one of the early times I got punished. I I'll never forget it. I was maybe like in first or second grade and my dad was dropping my brother and I off in school. He pulls up. He's like, "All right, kids, go to school." And for whatever reason, I was like, "No, I don't want to go." And I don't know how my dad was so quick to catch it cuz he said, "Oh, okay." And my brother just left by himself. And it was a very silent car ride back home before as soon as we got home, my dad spanked me and then asked me, "Do you not want to go to school?" And I was like, "Yes." And right back to school I went. And I never pulled that again. And I have no ill feelings for my father. I love my father to death. And I know you I even knew then as a child I deserved it. Like I I knew like yeah that one is on me, right? And I never try to pull something like that again. Consequences on point and more importantly it fixed the behavior. I tested that boundary once. I learned really quickly I don't like that consequence and I'm not going to ever do that behavior ever again. I'm not testing that boundary anymore for you know whatever age I was like eight year old or whatever that spanking was enough to say like hey man I don't want any part of this right so I feel like that's the type of structure you need to have where if somebody is going to test that boundary once they're never going to want to repeat it again because the consequence is too severe And for things that are very uh bad in the sport maybe or in the rules or whatever the the structure is, we never get another chance, right? Like to me, if somebody is at MMA fight and he loads his hands his uh wraps with like lead shot, I think that's a criminal offense at that point that he should be going to jail. But he definitely should never ever compete again because he's doing something that could kill somebody. Now you're already in a sport where you can kill somebody with your bare hands and now you're going to magnify that by putting like lead shot or something in your in your wraps. Done. There's no room in the sport for you. And to people who are serial cheaters or people who, you know, abuse uh peeds, I see it the same way. What are you going to increase now your your recovery capabilities, your muscular limits so that you you can now hit your opponent with more force that could potentially man them to me don't belong in the sport, right? That's lifetime band offense. If I'm running the show, maybe then the sport would be empty as it is now, but that's where my ethics lie. Anyhow, that's my take on this guys. You can feel free to agree or disagree with me in the comments and I'll catch you all next week.