Jones's hands-to-the-face move is the MMA equivalent of the pick play the Broncos constantly run: it's illegal, but it's not his responsibility to monitor it, it's the referee's. That's why I think Gustafsson is able to hang with Jones, and why the smaller, beefier dudes can never seem to pull close. I think Texiera was faking a few of those eye pokes to try to force the referee to enforce it, but it only worked for the first round or two.

What is illegal? Sticking his fingers in his eyes is illegal and he was warned both times, but I don't believe it's illegal to put your hand on someone's head to keep the distance.

Makes sense.

Rumble should get the Cormier/Hendo winner for a shot at the Gustaf/Bones winner.

The criticism is that when he keeps his hands out there with fingers splayed wide open like that, its a strong disincentive for the other fighter to rush in for a punch because he'll run his eye into those fingers.

If you don't have a reason to have your hands wide open like that (like you are grappling or trying to grab the other fighter), then you are supposed to keep your hand at least mostly closed, but its not his responsibility to enforce that.

I really enjoyed that whole card, Jim Miller is a beast, Luke Rockhhold is going to blast Vitor if Vitor can work out his drug test issues and Rumble was just a freaking monster.


On another note WTF is Andrei Arlovski even doing back in the UFC? He is past it and needs to hang em up

Eh, you never know. I thought guys like Vitor and Lawler were done when the UFC brought them back. He just needs to get involved in exciting fights. I haven't watched him recently but he got the boot before because he was losing boring fights. You can lose some, but if you make it entertaining you'll stick around.

Daniel Cormier is going to ragdoll Jon Jones. We all saw what Gus did to Jones early in the fight, now imagine an olympic wrestler who ragdolled heavyweight fighters.

Take out a second mortgage and put it on Cormier.

He better have his custom vampire mouthguard

He's had a habit of getting knocked out in glorious fashion lately

I though he was like 6-1 in his last 7 fights?

Edit. Yeah he's 6-1 in his last 7 fights with his only loss to Rumble by decision which doesn't look so bad at the moment.

He is, the problem is the only guy he's beaten that has any name recognition is Mike Kyle. Rumble Johnson man handled him in his loss and he wasn't representing very well prior to that streak. He got KO'd by several guys in Strikeforce and Affliction but that's been 3 or 4 years ago now

That's fine. I'd rather see a great KO then one of those boring decisions he was losing at the end of his UFC run.

I'm not betting a 2nd mortgage on anyone vs Jon Jones right now. The guy has never actually been beaten in his career. (Only loss was a DQ) I might be willing to bet against him on the Gus rematch, but it would have to be a reasonable amount of money that I'm willing to lose.

I agree, I also don't think Schaub is going to be the guy to decide whether or not he should stay.

Here's a very interesting article on Jon Jones' arms. The author is arguing that he's not being dirty, but that what he's really doing is using an old-school Muay Thai stance that most fighters don't use anymore in order to throw more powerful elbows (which he was definitely doing), and the eye pokes are just an unfortunate side-effect.

http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2014/4/28...-mma-judo-chop