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CECIL PEOPLES CALLED JAMIE VARNER VS. KAMAL SHALORUS A DRAW!
By Zach Arnold | June 20, 2010
What!!!!
One judge – 29-27 Shalorus (WHO IS THIS JUDGE?)
Cameron Quwek was the judge who scored the bout 29-27 for Kamal Shalorus. Remember that name and add it to your judging turd list. — Jordan Breen
Second judge – 29-27 Varner
CECIL PEOPLES – 28-28 DRAW
For the record, I scored the fight this way: Varner 10-9 R1, Varner 10-8 R2, Varner R3 10-9 (30-26). Kenny Florian agreed with me.
The ultimate irony is that Shalorus didn’t rely on his wrestling but relied mostly on low and middle kicks and we know what judges think about kicks (“leg kicks don’t matter”).
If there had been no point deduction, Kamal Shalorus would have won the fight on the score cards.
That’s right, Cecil Peoples had Kamal Shalorus winning two rounds to one over Jamie Varner.
29-27 Shalorus? Buhahahaha. What a turd in the punch bowl of otherwise quality judging.
Also, 28-28 scorecard from Cecil Peoples must mean that he thinks leg kicks do count for something. But still. Just dreadful.
Another question: how doesn’t Shalorus lose a point for the third low blow? That would’ve given Varner a split decision. Absurd.
Horrendous judging ruined that main event.
Jamie Varner… this guy always has controversy wherever he goes. Breaks his right hand, gets kicked in the nuts three times, is caught on TV negotiating with Josh Rosenthal to try to get a second point deducted from Shalorus, and the Edmonton crowd chants his name. Don’t they know he’s a heel? 🙂 Now he’s going to be out for an extended period of time, he got royally screwed by the judges (what’s with Canada and famous screwjobs?), and he’s probably stuck having to rematch with Shalorus down the road.
Kamal Shalorus… showed that leg kicks really work (some judges need to be reminded of this on occasion), didn’t use his strength at all in the match which is wrestling, and hulked up twice after getting blitzed by Varner’s boxing skills.
Edmonton, you are a fabulous crowd. Ignore Jordan Breen when he calls you Deadmonton. He’s a bitter Canadian. You guys did great on Sunday night at Rexall Place.
Shawn Tompkins looked so happy out there and he had good reason to be. Mark Hominick and Yves Jabouin was a war and Chris Horodecki had to face a last-minute replacement and still looked good. Plus, the undercard fights were terrific.
Kenny Florian, some may downgrade your commentating style for being too technical and not as energetic as Joe Rogan… but I like your work on TV. You did a great job on both Saturday and Sunday night. You are tailor made for this role once you retire. Thumbs up.
Topics: Canada, Media, MMA, WEC, Zach Arnold | 19 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
1. Someone had to have given Kamal all three rounds. Terrible.
2. Ref didn’t take a second point from Kamal. Terrible.
Wait, what? That fight was a draw??
I switched off as soon as the fight finished to catch a replay of the football from last night and it’s a DRAW?
My god.
If you get a point deducted for groin strike #2…. I believe you have to have point deducted for groin strike #3.
Pathetic judging on that fight. I had it 29-27. I don’t see how anybody could have given Shalorus all 3 rounds. The guy got rocked multiple times throughout the fight.
On a side note…. This is why draws should be avoided at all costs. Even if this was a good decision, fans hate them. They want a winner.
It wouldn’t totally shock me if the commission made a mistake and the correct score gets announced later. I really can’t see how anyone could have given Kamal all three rounds. Surely that was added together incorrectly as the commission table.
I had the fight 29-28 Varner and would have doled out 2 point deductions to make it 29-26. I was so confused when 29-27 (3-0) Shalorus came out since Varner was answering all of the powerful low kicks with power punches and landed a few kicks of his own.
Does anyone else feel as though Varner is running into some of the more durable fighters at LW overall with Shalorus and Cerrone? He has lit up each guy with flush power shots and neither really ever flinched.
Shalorus seems to be a character guy, but Rosenthal should have punished Shalorus’ lack of caution with those kicks. In the first, Varner shook one low blow off, so there were actually a total of four inside kicks which landed illegally. How there was no punishment for the biggest low blow of the fight makes little sense as I thought it was getting to the point where a DQ could have been called. I don’t like illegal blows determining a winner, but there is a responsibility for the offending fighter to not put the outcome in jeopardy.
The deduction would have tipped Peoples’ scorecard to the rightful winner. The situation with the final low blow reminded me of Tito’s fence holding which indirectly led to him winning the 2nd round vs. Rashad. In this case, a weakened Varner gave up the takedown (though his hand and foot had been damaged separately).
They desperately need to standardize the rules for point deductions. I’m in favor of a strict liability system where fouls are automatic deductions regardless of intent, but I know most people will think that is too harsh. Either way, you need clear rules so fighters understand the rules they are competing under.
Wait so people are complaining over the scoring of the Varner/Shalorus fight but not over the Jardine/Hamill fight i’m I in some bizaro world or what?.
People did complain that Jardine got screwed on pretty much every thread I’ve read on the show. But nobody really likes either fighter (Hamill because he’s a douchebag and Jardine because he’s boring) so the outrage is obviously kept to a minimum.
Ken-Flo, Breen, and now the OP are affirmed idiots. Shalorus clearly won 2 and 3, with the point deducted in 2, that means 28-28. Cecil had it right for once. When Compustrike and Fight Metrics come out, I think minds might change.
Kamal fought an entertaining, but completely counterproductive match.
The leg kicks worked but Varner’s boxing technique was far better and he connected solidly whenever he wanted to. He did damage on a few occasions and rocked Shalorus.
Shalorus went for a take down, a minor one at that, in the third round when he was already down (in my books) 20-17. So, even if you argue he won the third round, he should have lost 29-27.
In the grand scheme of things, the irony is that Shalorus will probably be healthier than Varner and will end up facing Ben Henderson because of injuries.
I dunno why, but this reminded me of when Luger and Bret Hart fell from the ring at the end of the Royal Rumble in 94′ or 95′.
Easy fix to me. Shalorus gets the first fight with Henderson because of the obvious injuries to Varner, and Varner gets the winner down the road.
“Striking for points” only works when you’re not getting hit back (ie a Machida fight) But when everything you throw gets answered you have to judge what is doing more damage. And there’s no way you can count a leg kick as being as important to trying to finish a fight as punches. It’s not like they were Cro Cop leg kicks that were crippling Varner, he was counterstriking easily.
Fightmetric scored it 29-27 for Varner(with point deduction).
In boxing, you have the three knockdown rule in some states. People hate it more often than love – mandatory rules of that nature can lead to controversy when a bad call is made.
As far as the low blows go, it probably comes down to accidental vs. intentional. Anyone who wants to see mandatory point deduction for unintentional low blows is an idiot – you’ll have guys rolling all over the mat every fight trying to win off “groin strikes” that actually land on the belt line or outside thing.
Referees also can choose to let the fighters fight just as NBA officials will “let them play” by being rougher without necessarily stepping in to change the course of action in the contest. Refs shouldn’t be looking to be the focal point/star of a fight when it happens.
I meant to say outside thigh and meant hip. I shouldn’t even be awake.
I don’t care much for Cecil Peoples but I can’t believe MMA writers are still bringing up those leg kick comments that he never made. I’ve now seen Breen, Meltzer and even Rogan bring it up.
The site those comments came from also produced quotes from a Mayweather press conference that never happened, a Rothwell interview that irritated Big Ben so much that he made enough noise on the UG that the story got pulled completely and a Coleman interview where he said he was training for Tito at UFC 106 with Ernest “The Cat” Miller.
More on this please Ross? What site and links if possible…
http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2009/9/15/1031286/floyd-mayweather-blasts-mma
http://www.mixedmartialarts.com/mma.cfm?go=forum_framed.posts&thread=1550261
CageReport removed those articles after they were found to be fake.
No one ever questioned the Cecil Peoples quote from CageReport because they all wanted to believe that a bumbling fool like Cecil WOULD come up with poor reasoning for his scorecard.
Ah. So there really was NO reason for his terrible scorecards…
I’ll never give Cecil the benefit of the doubts. He has botched wayyyy to many fights.
Peoples is consistently involved in judging travisties. He is a narsasistic douche, I almost get the impression he loyally fucks up his scores for press, however negative it is. When he said anyone who disagreed with machida vs. Rua I. Could go to yell, virtually he said EVERYONE who watched that fight should because everyone who saw it knew Rua won. Peoples should go to Mali and jerk off that ref who fucked the US soccer team.