MMA MAilbag: Strikeforce Diaz Vs. Daley Edition

Added on Apr 11, 2011 by John Petit in

UFC & MMA

Questions started flooding in to me on twitter since the minute Strikeforce Diaz Vs Daley ended, and although I thought I covered most of it in my review, they still kept coming. So this edition of the mailbag will be all on the wrap up from Saturday’s event. If you have mailbag questions, hit me up on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/scream13

What did you think of Big John McCarthy’s stop in the Main Event with Diaz and Daley?

Firstly, Big John McCarthy is one of the best referees, if not THE best ref in the game. The only ref I like as much as I like Big John is Herb Dean. I am imagining this question is coming after everyone heard the Paul Daley video where he says that BJM should have let the fight go another three seconds, and let it go to a second round. The thing about the stop is that the Ref should never regard the time in the cage. The Refs job is fighter safety no matter what time it is in the round, and how important the fight is. The “ten second clap” is only to let the ref know the end of the round is coming, and to get into position to stop the action. THATS IT. People seem to think that the sound is for the fighters to know, but its there for the Refs.

Second, I’m okay with the stop for a few reasons. The first one being that Daley was on the ground for at least 4 minutes after the fight was stopped, and he needed to be helped to the stool. That doesn’t sound like a guy who is ready to go another 20 minutes against a fighter as brutal as Nick Diaz. The second reason is that Big John said he was done. Now thats sounds flippant to say, but I mean it. Big John has since said he saw Daley’s eye roll in the back of his head, and if thats what he saw Daley owes McCarthy an apology and a thank you. Daley also said, “that was a war, people would have wanted another round like the one you saw.” Sure, we would like to see 500 rounds like that, the fight was amazing. However, if Big John saw him needing to be helped to his stool he would have called the doctor in, and the doctor would have stopped it.

How can you say you scored the Jardine Vs Mousasi fight for Keith when the Fight Metric stats say what they say?

I’ll be honest, I rarely look at Fight Metric, or Compustrike unless we some incredible striking. I dismiss this argument for one reason. The judges don’t get to see those stats before scoring. I have judged fights before, and its a very difficult job. You have to watch it, comprehend what you saw, and lay down in a few numbers how you felt. When you watch the fights at home, you have the best seat in the house, and you will see things the judges won’t see. That said, when you are cage side, you see things people don’t see at home or in the audience.

I scored the fight a draw. I had Jardine winning the first round, and when you add in the point deduction, its a 10-8 round for Keith. Mousasi won the last two rounds, and thats how I got my score. I scored it live while it was going on, and since i watch every major event twice, I scored it again. It was a close fight, but thats how I scored it. It doesn’t matter what I thought of the point deduction, but since its part of the discussion, I thought it was a little soft. However, its hard to tell how much damage is done from a head shot, the brain scrambles a lot easier then people think.