Pitbull thinks stoppage was fair: Chandler ‘kissed the floor’

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kneeblock

Drapetomaniac
Apr 18, 2015
12,435
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You seemed to have latched on to this word 'revisionism' but I'm not entirely sure you know what it means. I'm not the first to raise these issues about BJM. Revisionism would be more akin to pretending this behavior never happened. You bring up that nobody had seen tapes until 96 or 97 - but I just said that he was even worse in late '97 than he was in 94. And I just arbitrarily picked UFC 15 - he was still unnecessarily manhandling fighters well into the 2000s. Let's not pretend he hadn't seen any other refs by then.
Bro, come on, not to be a certain type of way, but you know who you're talking to so let's not pretend we don't know what words mean.

You're making a claim about Big John having watched other refs and thought to himself "wow, that's how I should be stopping fights" based on no evidence whatsoever. You're also talking about a time in the sport where there was little to no quality control over anything whether it was UFC 4, 15, 25 or even 30. If you want to say, "I thought Jon was too rough in his stoppages and here's the evidence, look what he did to Bryan Johnston" then we can say "ok, yeah that was messed up. I wonder why he did that." Then we can look at what standards SEG had governing referees, what guidance they gave fighters about how a fight would be stopped and what they should do, and then comparing them to other orgs at the time and seeing how each responded.

Pancrase, WVC, and even Extreme Fighting operated in relative silos. In fact, Pancrase had no real ground striking to speak of except some face slaps and body punches so the comparison isn't even relevant. Neither did shooto or RINGS. In Brazil, a few shows turned into full scale riots and after the one at Pentagon Combat the sport was effectively banned in some parts of Brazil. WCC had a ref who had to literally pry Renzo off of his opponent because he refused to let go of a choke. Perretti's Extreme Fighting was maybe the most professionally run, but they also were making it up as the awful John Lewis/Carlson Jr. match early on proved.

There simply wasn't any kind of information sharing around best practices, nor was there any substantive promotional guidance around the issue. Big John had a ton of screw ups and maybe not the best temperament, but in those days it was the job of the people promoting the event to police that. Looking backward at it through the lens of a post athletic commission regulated era is textbook revisionism.
 

Haulport

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes
First 100
Jan 17, 2015
3,062
4,165
At 1:20 with him laying completely face down eating 3 shots and not moving, how can you not agree with the ref's decision to call the fight?
First it's in slo-mo so it looks longer. Even Big John says it's hard to tell if he was out. He was not laid flat and two of the shots hit chandlers arms. If a fighter can't get 3 seconds to compose himself then something is wrong imo. All you need to do is get someone in trouble and throw a lot of shots and refs would have to call it.

There is only about 1.5 seconds that he seems out
 
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D241

Banned
Jan 14, 2015
4,384
4,741
I believe Lordofthepies has a history of being logical. I can't say I remember him saying something crazy.

That being said, you're way off dude lol

There certainly isn't anyone suggesting the same thing you are and if there is, you're going to have to look long and hard to find them. Seems like you've got some hidden issues with Big John to say some of the things you're saying. It's all good though. I think future interactions with you can be good and influential on your part as long as the subject doesn't involve BJM.
 

Sex Chicken

Exotic Dancer
Sep 8, 2015
25,819
59,498
It's a widespread problem with refs. I remember Kim Winslow slapping a heel hook on an unconscious George Roop.
 

sparkuri

Pulse On The Finger Of The Community
First 100
Jan 16, 2015
34,427
46,567
As soon as those first three punches landed, I said to my husband and our friend, "Oh. Pitbull has Chandler's number tonight." And they argued with me. But it was pretty obvious Pitbull had the bead on him. And then he went down and we argued about the call, but after the replays they agreed with me.

Did not really like BJM's criticism of the ref there - he was speaking as someone paid by Bellator, but his voice is still too influential in the referee and athletic commission world imo.
Exactly.
At the time it seemed maybe early.
On the replay it was clear.
ANY good ref would've stopped that at the exact same time, it's just one of those things.
Big John was definitely being a company mouthpiece and it was sad to hear.
 

sparkuri

Pulse On The Finger Of The Community
First 100
Jan 16, 2015
34,427
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Just reading this.
Yes, BJ busted up Brian Johnston's nose.
Remember he was LAPD, and trained to stop a threat & reffing NHB was new.
John has got to be considered one of, if not the best mma/nhb ref.
I give him a pass in the early days.
 

Sheepdog

Protecting America from excessive stool loitering
Dec 1, 2015
8,912
14,237
Bro, come on, not to be a certain type of way, but you know who you're talking to so let's not pretend we don't know what words mean.

You're making a claim about Big John having watched other refs and thought to himself "wow, that's how I should be stopping fights" based on no evidence whatsoever. You're also talking about a time in the sport where there was little to no quality control over anything whether it was UFC 4, 15, 25 or even 30. If you want to say, "I thought Jon was too rough in his stoppages and here's the evidence, look what he did to Bryan Johnston" then we can say "ok, yeah that was messed up. I wonder why he did that." Then we can look at what standards SEG had governing referees, what guidance they gave fighters about how a fight would be stopped and what they should do, and then comparing them to other orgs at the time and seeing how each responded.

Pancrase, WVC, and even Extreme Fighting operated in relative silos. In fact, Pancrase had no real ground striking to speak of except some face slaps and body punches so the comparison isn't even relevant. Neither did shooto or RINGS. In Brazil, a few shows turned into full scale riots and after the one at Pentagon Combat the sport was effectively banned in some parts of Brazil. WCC had a ref who had to literally pry Renzo off of his opponent because he refused to let go of a choke. Perretti's Extreme Fighting was maybe the most professionally run, but they also were making it up as the awful John Lewis/Carlson Jr. match early on proved.

There simply wasn't any kind of information sharing around best practices, nor was there any substantive promotional guidance around the issue. Big John had a ton of screw ups and maybe not the best temperament, but in those days it was the job of the people promoting the event to police that. Looking backward at it through the lens of a post athletic commission regulated era is textbook revisionism.
John's behaviour was aberrant and this was understood contemporaneously by many. Not all but many. I'm not looking at it through the lens of the regulated era and have made that clear. There were other refs not doing the same thing, and he was still doing it long after it was a near impossibility that he wouldn't have seen them. It was simply not just a product of early confusion, otherwise all refs would be doing it.

The Brian Johnston one was not even close to the worst you can find by the way.

I'm not accusing BJM of being some sex offender or outright awful person. What I am saying, is that he has displayed fairly irrational and abnormal behaviour in the past. People give weight to his opinions based on the good things he has done for the sport and I am saying that his judgement shouldn't necessarily be trusted.
 

kneeblock

Drapetomaniac
Apr 18, 2015
12,435
23,026
John's behaviour was aberrant and this was understood contemporaneously by many. Not all but many. I'm not looking at it through the lens of the regulated era and have made that clear. There were other refs not doing the same thing, and he was still doing it long after it was a near impossibility that he wouldn't have seen them. It was simply not just a product of early confusion, otherwise all refs would be doing it.

The Brian Johnston one was not even close to the worst you can find by the way.

I'm not accusing BJM of being some sex offender or outright awful person. What I am saying, is that he has displayed fairly irrational and abnormal behaviour in the past. People give weight to his opinions based on the good things he has done for the sport and I am saying that his judgement shouldn't necessarily be trusted.
I can absolutely agree with your last sentence and if that's your overall thesis, it's a sound one. BJM should not be given any additional credibility by virtue of being the first widely recognized referee. Instead, he should be assessed on the merits of the job he did and have that determine how much weight any of his opinions have. He was the first to widely offer referee training and is considered an expert in this area and there's reason to call the position he occupies into question.

Where I differ from you is simply that I don't think what he was doing was necessarily more or less rational or abnormal. I think we have a fairly large sample size of his work as a referee where his mistakes stand out more and a fair comparison would be based on contemporaneous refs and how they behaved. It's not like some of the people who came on the scene later like Miragliotta, Yamasaki, or Mazzagatti haven't been critiqued as terrible refs for vastly different reasons. BJM can be easily condemned for being aggressive, but in the pre-athletic commission era, the only people to improve on what he was doing would have been the promoters and they instead seemed to defer to him. I can't believe I've spent a thread defending McCarthy because I have so many other issues with things he's said and done and am not a big fan of his at all. His book was one of many MMA bios that I actually had to stop reading because it was so terrible and his attitudes shaped by policing are definitely problematic. But all of that said, in my view it's always been the job of the people making the most money off of the fighters to also bear the most responsibility for their safety. Multiple promoters, whether SEG, Zuffa, DSE, Battlecade, Battarelli, Pancrase and even Coker have at various times fallen short on that responsibility and left it to others to just figure things out in an environment that incentivized trade secrets and non-cooperation. Because of that, the bounds and expectations of rational behavior become more elastic.
 

Sheepdog

Protecting America from excessive stool loitering
Dec 1, 2015
8,912
14,237
I can absolutely agree with your last sentence and if that's your overall thesis, it's a sound one. BJM should not be given any additional credibility by virtue of being the first widely recognized referee. Instead, he should be assessed on the merits of the job he did and have that determine how much weight any of his opinions have. He was the first to widely offer referee training and is considered an expert in this area and there's reason to call the position he occupies into question.

Where I differ from you is simply that I don't think what he was doing was necessarily more or less rational or abnormal. I think we have a fairly large sample size of his work as a referee where his mistakes stand out more and a fair comparison would be based on contemporaneous refs and how they behaved. It's not like some of the people who came on the scene later like Miragliotta, Yamasaki, or Mazzagatti haven't been critiqued as terrible refs for vastly different reasons. BJM can be easily condemned for being aggressive, but in the pre-athletic commission era, the only people to improve on what he was doing would have been the promoters and they instead seemed to defer to him. I can't believe I've spent a thread defending McCarthy because I have so many other issues with things he's said and done and am not a big fan of his at all. His book was one of many MMA bios that I actually had to stop reading because it was so terrible and his attitudes shaped by policing are definitely problematic. But all of that said, in my view it's always been the job of the people making the most money off of the fighters to also bear the most responsibility for their safety. Multiple promoters, whether SEG, Zuffa, DSE, Battlecade, Battarelli, Pancrase and even Coker have at various times fallen short on that responsibility and left it to others to just figure things out in an environment that incentivized trade secrets and non-cooperation. Because of that, the bounds and expectations of rational behavior become more elastic.
We will just have to remain in agreement mostly and disagree on one part.

His analysis of the TJ-Cejudo fight was so awful - whatever you think of the stoppage, he genuinely had no fucking idea what he just watched and yet still threw a fellow ref under the bus - that I guess any time he comments on another ref in his new role then I'm going to get mad.

At the very least, newer fans should know that for every media figure who presents him as the Gandhi of MMA reffing, there's plenty of disgruntled old cunts like me that have serious problems with him (not enough of a problem to deny the many good things he has done, though).