The FF-Files: Points of Authority
“Forfeit the game before somebody else takes you out of the frame and puts your name to shame, cover up your face, you can’t run the race, the pace is too fast, you just won’t last.” — Linkin Park, “Points of Authority”
In a past FF-Files piece titled “Point of Clarification,” we reviewed a few unusual results that took place in recent memory that needed a bit more description than TKO (Detached Finger) or TKO (Retirement) could provide. As we were soon reminded during that brief dive into the oddities of the sport, the Authority in Mixed Martial Arts since 1997 has quite a database full of these anomalies, mysteries and miracles.
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ACA YE 18, April 12, 2021, Tolstoy-Yurt, Russia.
Days after “Point of Clarification” was submitted for publication, a traditionally strait-laced league in Russia had a zany turn of events play out. The whole sequence could benefit from the “Benny Hill Show” theme music playing. At ACA Young Eagles 18–one of a series of fight cards filled with promising prospects and youthful talent in the region–everything was going swimmingly for the first two dozen matches of the day. When Saikhan Dzhabrailov and Rustambek Amanbaev, a pair of lightweights looking to move into the bigger leagues with a win, took to the cage, things went sideways.
Referee Ashot Ashugyan thought he was handling the formalities of
any normal fight: Get the seconds out of the cage, make sure the
door is closed and check that the judges and timekeeper are ready.
The fighters wanted nothing to do with that. After 10 minutes of
combat, they decided they had figured out this cage fighting thing
and went at it alone. What’s the worst that could happen? Amanbaev
laid waste to Dzhabrailov in opening seconds, with enough
ground-and-pound to knock the Russian out and zonk him back into
consciousness. No one, including veteran referee Ashugyan or backup
ref Gerikhan Shibilov—who sprinted into the cage to stop the fight
that hadn’t officially started—knew quite what to do. A few bouts
in major promotions have been overturned lately due to improper or
premature stoppages. Ask Dan
Argueta. This was quite the opposite, as it was an improper
restart. With the ref the sole arbiter of the bout and no command
to commence the third round, the chief option was for the fight to
be ruled a no contest. A technical decision may have been in play,
but Russia ain’t got time for that.
KOMMA 1, Sept. 13, 2014, Konin, Poland.
As we have explained in the past, there used to be a bit of a “wild west” approach to entering fight results on Fight Finder. We had no uniform system that guided submitters and Fight Finder reps to organize the info and keep it aligned. We include this with the fact that much of our staff is international, with some where English is not their first language and may not even be their second or third. Benign results might become a bit more exciting, through no fault of their own.
This led to some funny moments, like the “Flying Foot” we see above. Many scenarios play out when imagining how this knockout could have materialized. Was it a kick out of the Liu Kang playbook? How far did the foot fly? How high did it go? Unfortunately, there was no button combo that Terlikowski had to press. He simply caught an off-balance Paczek with a glorious flying knee, one that unquestionably scored when Paczek was grounded under the Unified Rules. It does not matter; we do not unravel the threads of history but rather shine a light on them to celebrate the weird. It was a sweet flying knee.
Battlezone FC 15, April 2, 2016, Dublin, Ireland.
Leave it to the amateurs to goof around in the cage. It may be for the best, because those losses do not have the same impact on one’s permanent record as a defeat in the pros when trying to be too cool for school. Out of the “My Hero Academia” arsenal comes a move that character All Might would try to pull off against a villain, unleashing the attack while shouting its name, “Shoulder of Justice!” That’s genuinely how it is entered on Fight Finder, and the person who added it years ago was not out of line or even necessarily incorrect. That’s its name.
According to Sherdog’s Sean Sheehan, his colleagues at the underheralded SevereMMA team and Magnum P.I.’s Cathal Pendred, this specific move was fashioned among the ranks of Irish grappling practitioners as a way to punish lackadaisical fighters on their backs. Originating in side control, the person on top crushes their shoulder down on the jaw or throat of their opponent, in a position more commonly referred to as crossface. By itself it rarely elicits a tap, but it can force openings or lead to something greater, like a gateway sub. In an exchange, Moore snared a too-calm Levy and quickly turned towards a Von Preux shoulder choke. The Northern Irishman got a bit cheeky, sliding to north-south position to further make Levy’s life miserable. As it was said among the Irish MMA community, “If you weren’t defending properly, you’d get caught in that shoulder and get justice for the bad defence.” To keep things uniform, that move with a cool name will be set as a Submission (Shoulder Choke) in line with the Von Flue, Von Preux and shoulder pressure subs of the world.
You best believe there are plenty more of these head-scratching results that we want to review. Have you encountered any that you would like to see receive a deeper dive? Ask us about them, and also send any Fight Finder-related inquiry to [email protected].
