Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC

It was a shocking turn-around when Rousimar Palhares reversed Jake Shields with a kimura in the third round and forced the American into submission. But it was all too depressingly familiar when Palhares once again refused to release a submission hold after his opponent conceding defeat. Once again, the question of Palhares' place in MMA comes to the surface, and we are left wondering what on earth is going on inside that head of his.

Palhares is an enigma. He’s either malicious, careless, or moronic, and no one can quite make out which it is. In fact, there's no reason to believe the three are mutually exclusive. His behaviour is erratic both inside and outside of the bounds of competition, and his troubled childhood is considered to be one of the reasons for his maladjustment. One of ten children, Palhares' family worked a plantation to make ends meet below the poverty line. Sometimes his family was so destitute that they were forced to eat the same slop being served to the animals.

Whatever made Palhares the way he is, he is one of the few men in mixed martial arts of whom other hardened professional fighters are terrified. Not because he might beat them, but because if he does there is a good chance they will sustain unnecessary injury.

If you get knocked out, you might take an extra shot or two. But it's easy enough for a referee to rugby tackle a fighter out of mount, or throw himself between the conscious fighter and his victim. If you get choked unconscious, the guy doing the choking has a tremendous amount of time to reconsider his intentions between unconsciousness and death—and certainly no one is going into an MMA fight to murder their opponent.

But Palhares doesn't like choking people—and as wild and strong as he is—he doesn't have the skills to knock most fighters out. Palhares is terrifying because he can and will jump on the heel hook from any and every position. He'll pull fighters down on top of him:

Or he'll put himself into his opponent's half guard from side control just to attempt to reap the far leg. He'll even drag fighters out of the turtle just to go for the leg.



Can I haz leg?

And here's the thing, if he's got it locked in the opponent and the referee can do nothing. He decides if he wants to acknowledge the tap or not. And if he wants to destroy his opponent's knee joint after that, what can the ref do? Jump on top of him while he's got pressure on his victim's knee joint? No, they just pat him impotently until he decides it's been enough.

Palhares claims, repeatedly, to not feel the tap. Certainly he seems to have enough adrenaline pumping through him at all times that he could well be numb to the world. Others claim he's just dumb or malicious. Whatever the case, he has a proven track record of holding submissions too long, in addition to being one of the strongest men in the division, and specializing in what is considered the most dangerous of all joint manipulations.

This bout in particular was marred further by accusations from Shields that Palhares repeatedly thumbed his eyes. Watching the bout, in which Palhares was on the bottom and fighting off guard passes for the majority of the regulated time, it was impressive how the Brazilian used head control to hinder Shield's passes—it being very hard to get side control if your head is on the same side of the bottom man as your hips and legs.

Reviewing the footage, one can clearly see Palhares' hands all over Shields' face throughout the bout. Plenty of chances to gouge the eyes, and—unless Shields went and beat his head against a table after this almost completely strike-free bout—consistent with Shields' post fight bruising. Shields repeatedly appealed to referee Steve Mazagatti during the bout, and Mazagatti did in fact warn Palhares, but nothing was ever done.

Here Shields shouts to Mazagatti that Palhares is trying to thumb his eye, while Palhares repeatedly tries to get something into an orifice just long enough to have Shields posture up so he can throw his legs up and hope for a heel hook:

Here Shields against tries to alert Mazagatti, adding that he's “trying it again” and some expletives. Mazagatti acknowledges that Palhares is attempting to thumb the eye... but does nothing about it.

And this, of course, has raised the awkward point that Jake Shields' entire gameplan against Georges St. Pierre, in the biggest fight of his career, was to thumb the champion's eyes at every point. Whenever St. Pierre stepped in, rather than punching back, Shields would feel for St. Pierre's eye with his fingers splayed as wide as possible.

Shields isn't the best striker out there, but he hadn't thrown an open handed strike on the feet in his entire career... suddenly everything was a wide open rake at St. Pierre's face.

It was pretty disgusting to watch, but it doesn't destroy the validity of Shields' claim—in fact, it hammers home the point that the handling of these situations in the sport is incredibly poor. But there aren't a lot of ways to make it better.

If you start deducting points for the first eye poke or groin strike—which there is a good argument for—you run the risk of creating a culture where faking these fouls is more pervasive. Mirko 'Cro Cop' Filipovic went down off a groin shot against Jarrel Miller in GLORY, got time to recover, and when the replay was shown it was apparent that the strike was nowhere near his groin.

So what do you do? Have a video review? Okay, so a guy says its a low blow, and its not—you can't deduct a time out, he's already had it while you're watching the film. Are you going to deduct a point straight off the bat? If a fighter is hurt already or desperately in need of a break, is it worth faking the groin strike or eye poke in order to buy time? Do you have a period between rounds where both corners get thirty seconds to bring a replay from the round to the referee's attention?

It's a minefield. Do we ban the use of the open hand on the face? The use of the open palm method of stiff arming on the feet as Jon Jones loves to use? That would be eliminating effective legal methods because illegal ones can be concealed within them.

But those are questions of officiating, where the issue is of an official either not acknowledging a foul or, less forgivable, acknowledging it and taking no action other than a issuing a worthless verbal warning. The real question, which has followed Rousimar Palhares around since he expulsion from the UFC, is whether a fighter can be too dangerous for professional fighting.

I would posit that yes, yes it is. The question is, will Palhares become the first fighter effectively blacklisted from the sport? The UFC dropped him because he was a danger to their athletes' longevity (the same reason we don't allow eye pokes, groin strikes, small joint manipulation). But will World Series of Fighting follow suit? Certainly they don't have that many big stars. Palhares vs Shields was the most excited I have ever been for a WSOF card.

Much of running a small promotion is finding a star and feeding him lesser fighters—if Ray Sefo fired Palhares and wasn't willing to just continue feeding him less expensive talent, he'd be a good man—a better man than most—but a promoter throwing away a mid-tier star. Certainly there will always be a smaller promotion willing to cash in on Palhares' skill, middling name value, and might even use the claim that he's “too real” for the UFC and WSOF. Just think about how many fighters have been successfully marketed on a 'bad boy' gimmick.

Unfortunately, I can't offer many solutions other than better officiating. If a fighter is accusing his opponent of something, and you haven't seen it, that's fine. If you then see the opposing fighter commit the foul he's been accused of all fight, don't assume its the first time and warn him, just deduct the point. Better yet, warn him as soon as the opponent mentions it anyway, it doesn't cost the fighter anything to be warned and it means that if you see a foul you can confidently take a point without feeling it was unfair.



A beautiful underhook escape from Palhares. It helps to be built like a brick outhouse.

It is just a shame that a bout full of beautiful transitional jiu jitsu is so thoroughly stained by Palhares' appalling behavior.

Pick up Jack's new kindle book, Finding the Art, or find him at his blog, Fights Gone By.

Check out these related stories:

Rousimar Palhares Is a Leg-Lock Savant

Rousimar Palhares Turns to the Dark Side

The Rumors of Jake Shields' Death Are Greatly Exaggerated