The most amazing acts of mid-fight mockery in MMA history
#1. Frank Shamrock vs. Bas Rutten III Pancrase: Truth 5 Bas “El Guapo” Rutten loves to fight, almost too much….
#1. Frank Shamrock vs. Bas Rutten III
Pancrase: Truth 5
Bas “El Guapo” Rutten loves to fight, almost too much. He’s so excitable that he actually draws “R”s on the back of his hands to remind himself to “relax” during a fight.
Frank Shamrock knew all this and, maybe stupidly, decided that a lunatic Bas Rutten would be safer to fight than a tactical Bas Rutten, so he spent a lot of the fight f—— with Bas. It’s a technique he’s used often in his career. El Guapo kept his cool at first, landing kicks and knees and opening a cut over Frank’s eye, but everything changed when Frank took it to the ground and the two of them started battling for leglocks.
You don’t see a lot of leglocks in mixed martial arts because an effective escape is just sitting up and blasting your opponent in the face until he lets go. Bas Rutten knows this defense. However, under the Pancrase rules in effect then, the fighters can’t punch, they can only use palm strikes. So as Bas Rutten bitch-slapped his way out of the leglock, Frank baited him with silly faces. He was actually trying to get Bas to form a fist, knowing it would lead to a penalty red card.
Did it work?
Yes, Frank’s master plan of getting punched worked. In the same way “jumping” works for getting down an elevator shaft. Bas lost his temper, made a fist, and thumped it into the cut on Frank Shamrock’s grinning head. This gave him a red card, but it also started the fight back on the feet where Bas had every advantage. He was also now strangely energized.
Bas came out like a killing machine and Shamrock came out like a man with a recently-smashed head wound. Bas landed a knee and almost pulled Frank’s spine out with a standing guillotine choke. Soon the cut on Shamrock’s opened so far that the doctors stopped the fight.
#2.
Nate Quarry vs. Kalib Starnes
UFC 83
#3.
Duane Ludwig vs. Shad Smith
King of the Cage 4
(2:30 mark)
#4.
Gary Goodridge vs. Amir Rahnavardi
PRIDE FC 3
#5.
Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Royce Gracie
PRIDE Grand Prix 2000 Finals
#6.
Brandon Vera vs. Thiago Silva
UFC 125
