WSOF's Josh Burkman defends Rousimar Palhares' performance at WSOF 9

WSOF welterweight standout Josh Burkman might have a more educated opinion than most on whether Rousimar Palhares held a heel hook too long on Steve Carl, because it happened right in front of him.

“I was sitting down by the cage with (WSOF matchmaker) Ali (Abdelaziz) and (WSOF President) Ray (Sefo),” Burkman told MMAjunkie.

From his vantage point, Burkman saw the sequence that led to Carl’s fight-ending tapout in the first round of Carl (21-4) vs. Palhares (16-6), which headlined this past Saturday’s WSOF 9 at Las Vegas’ Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.

Despite a renewed debate on Palhares’ sportsmanship, or lack thereof, Burkman (27-10), who knocked out Tyler Stinson (27-10) earlier on the weekend fight card, is convinced the Brazilian submission specialist did nothing wrong.

“You could see that Rousimar was starting to get something and starting to figure something out,” Burkman remembers. “Steve tried to roll out of the heel hook into the leglock into the inverted heel hook. I think what looked controversial was, first, it was on, and Steve verbally submitted first. The referee didn’t hear it, either, I don’t think.

“So Steve was like, ‘Ah, I’m done,’ and he turned away from the referee when he did that. So I think everybody probably saw, ‘Oh, he got him, he’s done.’ And then Steve started to tap, and Rousimar knew that Steve was tapping, but the referee even told Rousimar before the fight, ‘Listen, I will stop this fight.’ So the referee is standing straight up in the air when all this is happening, so even when Steve is tapping, Rousimar is not going to let go until the referee stops that.

“It’s the referee’s job to break that up.”

Burkman said the nature of Palhares’ submission meant that the damage to the knee was already done before Carl registered the pain associated with the hold and tapped out. Add to that the time it took for the referee to intervene, and there was bound to be an uncomfortable gap for viewers.

“There’s a lot of time in there where the heel hook is locked in, popping Steve’s knee. But from the time that Steve first yells, to where he taps, to where the referee standing up and has to come down, that’s a long time where we’re yelling, ‘He’s got it; he’s got to let go.’ But he doesn’t have to let go, or he shouldn’t let go, really, until the referee is down there. I think the one thing that could help is if a referee sees that then to really get in position to be ready as soon as he taps to break him off of there.”

Burkman, of course, is well acquainted to the issue of referee positioning as it relates to full-speed fights. In a bout this past summer at WSOF 3, he choked Jon Fitch unconscious with a guillotine and let the hold go himself because the referee was not in a position to see Fitch go limp.

On Saturday, Burkman landed a fast hook that sent Stinson crashing to the mat in a flash. Stinson took one more hard shot before the referee was able to wave off the bout.

When fighters such as Palhares are going full speed and at full power, Burkman said, it takes a little bit of time to come to a stop. And while that might not be a satisfactory explanation to some fans, it’s a reality of competing at a high level.

“I think with Palhares, he just got a bad rap because he has held them a little bit extra long, and he’s done other things,” Burkman said. “That’s put him in a place where he’s a little bit of a villain. But doing what he did with Steve Carl, and not continuing to have those problems, he can recreate himself with the World Series of Fighting. It can be a good thing for the WSOF. He’s the champion now, and he can do things the right way.”

For additional coverage of WSOF 9, check out the MMA Events section of the site.

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