It’s not a surprise that Palharis’ leg-locks are under a microscope now. It’s like everyone’s sitting and watching with a stopwatch thanks to the reputation Paul Harris has built up for holding onto submissions way too long. Still, the outrage following last night’s WSOF 9 bout where Rousimiar won the belt from Steve Carl in a very quick first round submission is completly unjustified.
I actually saw “respected” mma journalists on Twitter saying he held it for 2, even 3 seconds too long. What warped world are you guys living in?
The fighters are instructed to hold onto the submission until the ref intervenes and stops the fight. If he lets go when the guy taps, and the ref doesn’t see the tap, the fight can continue… Remember Gracie vs Shamrock in the early days?
For Palharis to have held onto the submission for 2 or 3 seconds too long, he would have had to hold it for 2 or 3 seconds AFTER the ref had already jumped in, but that’s not what happened – he let go of it immediately as soon as the ref stopped the fight which was a split second after the tap – so what’s the problem here?
4:04 : Palhares grabs a leg and leans back, nothing is locked in yet.
3:58 – 3:53 : Palhares has the leg isolated, starting to put on the lock as Carl tries to spin out of it.
3:52 : The lock is tight, Steve Carl taps.
3:52-3:51 : The fight is stopped, the submission is released.
That’s about one second from the moment Steve Carl taps until the fighters are separated. Instead of grasping at straws and trying to make a story out of nothing, why not give some credit to the referee who was in there to stop the fight in less than a second from the tap?
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