Strange endings to fights between past prime athletes is becoming so common in Bellator that it is probably easy for observers to join in on fix! chants every time a new one happens.
A new one happened last week.
Tito Ortiz forced Chael Sonnen to submit with a rear naked choke in the first round of their Bellator 170 main event. Right away fans and professional fighters alike took to the web to express how they thought the fight looked fishy.
I didn’t watch the bout, live, but checked it out a few hours later. I’ll allow that the choke was initially surprising given its angle, but it takes more than general strange feelings to tag a fight and fighters with a fix tag.
I tinkered around on the mats Sunday with some students and there is indeed a choke from where Tito had Sonnen’s back. More on that in a bit…
Before one of my fighters Ramy and I hit on details that likely made the choke work for Tito from that odd angle I certainly was surprised that Sonnen tapped when and where he did. Yet, there his face was, turning purple as Ortiz squeezed.
Nothing else in the fight really seemed weird to me, either. Tito landed a straight cross that Sonnen later said stunned him a bit.
Then, Tito scored a single-leg takedown and Sonnen used his momentum against him to score a sweep and then look for a choke. No, Sonnen was never that close on any of his choke attempts.
First, from the front headlock position with Ortiz on all fours, Sonnen was never really able to secure a good grip to set up a D’Arce choke. So, it is little wonder he decided to let go of it and try for other things.
No, Sonnen’s subsequent guillotine choke afterward wasn’t close, either. Sure, he had his arm in around Tito’s neck but, as he said afterward, he wrapped up the wrong leg in his half guard, which happens sometimes in the heat of the moment.
No, of course I’m not surprised that after breaking free of Sonnen’s initial grips, Tito had his way with him and passed to mount with ease. Ortiz placed at the Olympics of submission grappling, ADCC, nearly 20 years ago.
I imagine he’s gotten more skilled on the mat in the past two decades.
Yes, Tito landed at least one hard elbow to Sonnen’s face after securing the mount, and yes just one Tito Ortiz elbow to the grill is enough to get a fighter like Sonnen to turn around and give his back up.
So, we’re left with the finishing choke. The angle Tito was able to finish it with is what made it kind of wondrous.
Usually, if a fighter or grappler gets the angle Sonnen had from inside the back mount, he or she can turn in and escape the back.
Tito’s leg control there was key, I believe. He had a modified figure-four lock on in between Sonnen’s legs, with his own right foot underneath and hooking Sonnen’s left leg.
The control there is no joke. On the upper body, Tito also had his chin and head right over Sonnen’s.
Ortiz also had his chest pressuring Sonnen’s back closely, in addition to using his own hips well in conjunction with the modified leg control.
The forearm Tito had on Sonnen’s neck with a short grip is also enough to vice the head and neck arteries and cut off blood, which is why Sonnen’s face turned purple before he tapped. Tito’s hold on Sonnen’s neck itself could very well have made turning into him (which is how he could have possibly escaped) a bit prohibitive for Sonnen, as well.
Tito’s grip cut off blood to Sonnen’s brain and made it painful to turn into the choke, at the same time his creative leg hooks held Sonnen’s lower body in place.
So, as we discovered while experimenting on the mats there is a choke there. Call it the Tito choke because I’d never seen it before.
To me, it now makes sense that Sonnen tapped. However, smarter and much more experienced people than me are still calling the tap nonsense.
One former top UFC fighter who I communicated with to discuss the choke thought it almost inconceivable that Sonnen could not have gutted his way through the choke and escaped.
Unless he has less mobility in his neck than Michael Keaton did in that Batman suit he could have fought out of that choke, Yves Edwards told me.
First, that is freaking gold. And, Yves may be right. I can certainly understand where he’s coming from in saying that.
Fighters at the highest levels are way tougher than I can even understand, and routinely fight through punishment and pressure that would seem too much to bear for an amateur like myself. So, to them I would just say that it may be helpful to remember who we’re talking about, here.
1. Chael Sonnen isn’t exactly averse to tapping out.
2. Chael Sonnen isn’t exactly young and so it wouldn’t surprise me at all if his neck isn’t in the best of health. Maybe not Michael Keaton in Batman stiffness, but you get my point.
The choke finish looked weird to me, until I was put in it. I won’t argue with the pros who say another pro should have been able to fight out of it, but I certainly won’t fault Sonnen for tapping to something I probably also would have.
To all the conspiracy theorists, fixes have always happened in professional fighting. And, Bellator has had way too many weird looking endings to avoid scrutiny.
More than strangeness is needed to make such a claim about a fight, however. Strange things happen when you put 40 and 50-year-olds in the cage with one another, sometimes, and Bellator does that more than most promotions.
Sometimes the older guys don’t look like they used to and don’t fight quite like they used to. Some of them can still put on some good pressure with a choke, though.
About the author:
Elias Cepeda has served as a writer and editor covering mixed martial arts and combat sports, as well as public and cultural affairs, since 2005. He began as a staff writer for InsideFighting, and not long thereafter became publisher and editor of the page. Cepeda then went to write for Yahoo! Sports’ boxing and MMA pages, and edited their Cagewriter blog. He was hired away by FOX Sports, but after several years departed over philosophical differences with the executive leadership around important issues of journalism ethics. A student of and sometime competitor in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and MMA since 1999, Elias brings a unique and vibrant presence to reporting, and enjoys trying to highlight shared humanity and connect common experiences from seemingly different worlds.
