It's more of a non-fightin' Tuesday. I finally got around to watching the last UFC. Not yet a month old, this fight is already infamous. Starnes basically runs from Quarry for three rounds and loses by decision. One judge scored the match as three 10-8 rounds, which is fucking unheard of. Even Stephen Hawking would get a 10-9 round, assuming that he tried to ram his opponent with his chair at least once. It was a half-hearted performance that pissed off both fans and management, losing Starnes his UFC contract.
Obviously, even a professional fighter would prefer to be punched and kicked in the face less rather than more. No one expects a fighter to rope-a-dope his way to victory. You expect a fighter to go into a fight with a game plan that plays to his strengths, minimizes the punishment he will take, if possible, and maximize his chances of winning. The problem with Starnes' gameplan, as executed, is that it gave him no chance of winning. "Lay & pray," in which a fighter does nothing but take down his opponent and control ground position to score points and eke out a decision victory, is boring as hell to watch, but at least it's a winning strategy. Running from your opponent will never win a match. Even if your opponent were to keel over due to some freak accident, they'd probably declare it a "no contest."
Of course, this fight does not compare to the cornholing the fans got in UFC 9. The Ken Shamrock vs. Dan Severn "Superfight" was a highly anticipated rematch of two of the biggest names in the sport at that time. Eager fans were treated to 30 minutes of one fighter circling the other. It was fucking torture, because it looked like something might happen at any time, so you couldn't leave to take a piss or get a beer or anything. Eventually, you had invested so much time that you'd be damned if you were going to leave and miss the action when it finally occurred. Which it didn't.
