Is Mixed Martial Arts A Sport?

This weekend looked like another night of filler fights in the UFC’s Apex. Then the main event gave us what could be MMA’s most controversial moment of the year. We’re going to talk about some good grappling from the fights and what the fallout of this event could mean for the future of mixed martial arts.

But before we get started I need to apologize.

Last week I said I would be sending out an overview on Felix Klinkhammer’s weird taekwondo takedown submission style. Then I got a deathly sick. Then Felix’s fight got cancelled. Those last two pieces pushed me to scrap the article and save it for when Felix fights again.

Now I want to share something with all of my jiujitsu nerds.

Now let’s get into today’s article.

Buried on the undercard of this event were faces and names I’m familiar with. Jon Santos, his fellow cornerman Gilbert Melendez, and the fighter they were guiding, Joseph Kropschot.

Santos is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt under Cesar Gracie. He’s been teaching and training fighters for the better part of three decades. That means he’s been rubbing elbows with Northern California fighting legends like the Diaz Brothers since before they blew up. He’s also worked with some forgotten OGs like Dave Terrell and my first coach Gil Castillo. I’m always happy to see people from my hometown win.

Plus it heals my ego to see Kropschot specifically win because that guy beat the piss out of me the only time we trained together.

Kropschot fought Nick Klein this weekend. Klein decided to shoot on Kropschot after he hurt Klein’s leg with kicks. Kropschot used his Brazilian jiu-jitsu to negate Klein’s offense and take command of the fight.

Kropschot would use this head lock to bring Klein back down to the floor.

D’arce chokes are weird because having long arms helps set them up, but if you reach your long arms too far in, you aren’t always able to close the neck anymore. That more or less happened here. But Kropschot was able to advance his position after losing the submission.

Kropschot rode out the round hitting Klein, trying to find a rear naked choke. In the second round Klein made the mistake of shooting on Kropschot again. This time he managed to take Kropschot’s back.

Klein wouldn’t survive this time.

Referee Dan Miragliotta must have had high expectations for grappling after watching this fight because he did not enjoy what he saw in the main event.

Veteran Renato Moicano headlined this event opposite Australian up-and-comer Tom Nolan. Moicano took Nolan’s back in the first round and stayed there for about four minutes. He was hitting Nolan and looking for a rear naked choke but the newcomer’s conservative defense was too hard to crack.

Nolan’s game plan became obvious in the second round. He kept trying to take advantage of the open stance match-up by leading with strikes off of his rear side. Moicano saw it and rode Nolan’s rear hand strikes in to take the back again.

Moicano spent a couple minutes carefully looking for rear naked chokes and punches before the unthinkable happened. Referee Dan Miragliotta stood the fighters up. From back mount.

Moicano didn’t protest and Nolan was happy to have another chance on the feet. Then Nolan found the shot he was looking for.

Moicano was hurt but he wasn’t beaten. He even managed to get the fight where he wanted it again.

Moicano stayed covered up and Miragliotta stopped the fight soon after this clip.

Now the UFC has a real mess on its hands.

The Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts state:

You can could reasonably argue that Referee Dan Miragliotta made the wrong call. You could stretch an argument to say that because neither fighter was able to demonstrate significant efforts to advance towards finishing the fight they deserved to be stood up.

I wouldn’t agree with that.

I would say that Tom Nolan’s hand fighting prevented Renato Moicano’s ability to advance towards finishing the fight, and in doing everything he could to turn the position into a stalemate Nolan should not have been rewarded.

Nolan was doing more to stall than Moicano was. Why should he benefit?

Daniel Cormier interviewed Nolan in the Octagon after the night. He asked, “Were you surprised that they actually restarted that position there?” Nolan responded, “Nah. I mean. You heard the crowd, They didn’t love it.”

And that’s really the problem.

The referee’s job is to enforce the rules an ensure a fight is fought fair. Referees are not paid to respond to crowds’ wishes.

Fights should not be won or lost because one person’s ears are ringing. Rules should be changed if specific techniques make a sport so slow it can’t be played.

Interpreting rules selectively to maximize entertainment changes an activity from a sport to something closer to what Vince McMahon legally labeled the WWF in 1989, sports entertainment. McMahon was arguing that the WWF wasn’t a sport so it should not be subject to the same regulations and penalties, and he did so to improve his bottom line. And I can’t help but be cynical about the situation that the UFC is currently in.

As Dana White fades further and further away from his old responsibilities at the UFC and Hunter Campbell takes a more involved role we are seeing underserved title shots, match-ups to build highlight reels, and in-fight officiating that changes how the game is played. I’m not saying either is directly responsible for this call. I am saying the White of waybackwhen went out of his way to crucify promoters that tried to engineer outcomes.

Don’t take my word for it. Here👇 is what the biggest and brightest mind in MMA said about the promoters who paid their fighters to stand-up instead of going to the ground.

What’s it going to be, UFC? Are you going to give a fuck? Or, are you going to let people like Campbell and “Big” Dan Miragliotta destroy the whole sport?