The Conversation

I recently ran into someone at the subway station, who trains in Jiu-jitsu and MMA. We rapped a little about the last Pride event, and of course Rampage vs. Arona came up. I asked him what he though of the head butt, to which he responded as the R train pulled into the station. "I watched it about ten times and there isn't a head butt" He said a few other things, and then he mentioned that, "They're trying to get Cro Cop back into the mix." To which I replied, "Why bother? He doesn’t deserve it, there are so many other more talented and well rounded fighters in Pride already." As he got out at his stop I thought he was going to kick my ass.

The Polemic

This Arona - Jackson fight was to determine the next challenger for Wanderlei's middleweight title, but Jackson fought Wanderlei about seven months ago so why did he deserve another opportunity? One theory I heard is that PRIDE felt it necessary to give Rampage one more shot at the title because many officials thought the way referee Shimada stopped Rampage while he was on the top attacking Wanderlei in the PRIDE middleweight GP finals was not fair.
Remember how the referee stopped Rampage, even though he was active and punching from the top. He stood both fighters up and then Wanderlei came back and won it.
So maybe the PRIDE officials felt they needed to give Rampage another shot ?
10 days after the PRIDE HW GP 2nd round, Sakakibara, the president of DSE,
announced that Rampage deserved the title shot.

Prepared

Arona, on the other hand, was supposed to be in last year's middleweight tournament but got injured (fractured right heel) so he also deserved this title shot. Arona - Jackson was supposed to happen at the opening round of the PRIDE GP last year, and the Brazilian was fully aware of Rampage's slamming power. After all, Rampage had forced Masaaki Satake into retirement by slamming his skull to the canvass. So Arona was prepared and had trained for the defensive technique against the slam.

Bounce – Head Butt

After watching this fight over and over again, I realized that Quinton was outclassed until the very end. If you watch the slow motion carefully, when Quinton slams Arona down from within his triangle, Arona's shoulder touches down first, and then his head comes down and bounces upward toward the left as Jackson’s cranium is coming down full force, they crash like two bowling balls, but crush like melons. Arona is out scary cold, and Quinton is visibly shaken with his right eye puffy and bleeding from when he made contact with the Jiu-jitsu man’s head. The blood on Arona’s face is probably Quinton's.
During the actual slam - Arona, just like Fedor against Randleman, bent his neck
forward (tucked in his chin), and touched the canvass with the right part of the shoulder first, a classic Ukemi (defensive technique) in Judo, so Arona was OK from the actual slam.
But, it should have never come to this, or perhaps Arona made a tactical mistake.

The Heel – The Hesitation – The Confession

When Arona landed that right heel to Quinton's chin, his head turned and twisted the throat with the power of an ax, leaving Jackson disoriented. Instead of immediately scooting out from beneath Jackson's body, Arona waved to the referee pointing out maybe, "this guy is out, or he's not moving." Perhaps too gentlemanly, Arona should have smelled the kill, and instead he let Quinton recover, resting inside his guard like a wounded puppy. He barely protected his head, covering it with a weakened right hand. A long moment went by here, a twilight zone second, and Arona thought the ref should have moved his ass instead of he himself finishing business.
Rampage, after the fight, confessed, that at that moment, his was unconscious just for a second.

Momentum - Sledgehammer Effect

Arona seemed superior from the very start of the match. He measured with a right straight and landed a series of sweltering snapping kicks, at least six without response. Quinton seemed to be dancing a little more than usual, sometimes trying to impose himself, thrusting forward with a straight right. Even from the guard Arona was more dangerous, landing heels and almost sweeping a cautious Rampage. After the violently hard heel to the chin, which Arona didn't follow up on, eventually came the triangle attempt, which was dangled in the spotlights by Jackson.
While high up in the air, Arona should have thought of a certain Canadian Ronin, who had a similar experience. Perhaps Arona should have released the triangle, thus avoiding the sledgehammer effect. If his body was loose or limp, Jackson couldn't have applied the forceful leverage with which he succeeded to slam Arona. It’s odd that Arona gambled from here, since it is a common last minute bail out measure, and automatic disqualification, in Jiu-jitsu tournaments, which is quite often seen.

The Proof

The greatest damage and proof that something had gone wrong, was Rampage's cut on the forehead. There was no cut whatsoever until right before the slam. Quinton wound up getting nearly forty stitches to his facial area, so you can only imagine how shaken he was, after this fight. Quinton came out more damaged than Arona in this one, although Arona wound up with a concussion. So we must assume that Arona survived the slam, but not Quinton's head butt.

The Lesson – No Contest

We saw this same type of controversial phenomenon with a different ending, when Matt Hughes woke up from his nap before Carlos Newton, who choked him out in mid air, but got crash-landed by a sleeping asphyxiated pilot named Hughes. Maybe the real lesson here is for the judges and not the fighters. When I saw the Carlos- Matt phenomenon from a couple yards away, I thought it should have been a no contest, and after now seeing this fight over and over and over, it should also be a No Contest. Sure Arona was out, but there is no way in hell to tell weather he was out from the slam, or the billiard ball double bounce, off the side and against the eight ball. Quinton was gone for that brief moment in the first period, but Arona was to cool to strike, leaving himself to the mercy of the local authorities.

Easy Come Easy Go?
Until this day, no one from the Brazilian Top Team is disputing this controversial decision/finish. Maybe that’s because they are real men, and we are merely critics or fans.

Sometimes in sports, some false moves or violations will be overlooked because it was "natural" considering the "flow" of the game. The classic example in MMA is the first Sakuraba -Nino fight. It was Nino's head butt that took Sakuraba out, but many think that it happened completely unintentionally, and it was within the flow of the offensive move, and so it was appropriately overlooked. This also happened in K-1, when Patrick Smith nailed Andy Hug as the referee was counting and Hug was getting off the floor.
Another good examples of this is the final game of the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. Remember when Diego Maradona was trying to head in the ball while the goalkeeper attacked at the same time, but then the ball accidentally hit Maradona's arm and he scored the winning goal. Again, this was overlooked because many consider that it happened within the flow of the game. Also, Futbol refuses to allow technology into the sport; no replays, only the referee's judgment at that moment, no matter how inaccurate.

But this Arona - Jackson incident is a little different from these other three incidents. This is because Arona could have locked his triangle choke when he got slammed on the ground. In other words, if it wasn't for the head butt, he could have done a lot from that bottom position. And Arona was not necessarily in a bad position. In fact, it's consider to be a superior position in Jiu-jitsu....

Question

Why didn't the ring doctors say anything about Rampage's cut immediately?
I mean, these doctors are professionals, and they are used to seeing lacerations and bruises from MMA fights, so they had to have a scientific clue as to how Rampage wound up with that big ass gash after the slam. They had to know and should have called it to the judge's attention.
Do you think the doctors didn't say anything on the spot because the crowd was so pumped up with this exciting finish?
If that is the case, it's pretty sad considering that this is an organized sport.

What do you think?
It's as if that split second slam put us all in, The MMA Twilight Zone.