After losing to Mike Pierce earlier this month at the UFC on FX 3 fight card in Sunrise, Florida, welterweight Carlos Eduardo Rocha is gone from the promotion.
It's natural that "Ta Danado" - who fought in Germany before getting his shot in the UFC - would be upset about his ouster, but in an interview with Brazilian fighting website Tatame.com, he placed the blame for the cut on his opponent, who used wrestling to control their bout at the BankAtlantic Center.
"I went there to fight MMA and he wants to win by points," Rocha said. "There were 15 minutes of mooring...and the UFC fires me after a fight where the guy just stood there mooring."
It's not a rare complaint for beaten fighters, disappointed fans, and various pundits: the "lay and pray" tactics of many a strong wrestler are anathema to the majority of MMA observers. However, those complaints ignore the classic response: if you don't like it, then don't let it happen.
This is particularly important in the case of Rocha. "Ta Danado" came to the UFC with a reputation as a submission specialist, with eight of his nine MMA wins coming via tapout. He lived up to that billing in his UFC debut with a kneebar submission of former Ultimate Fighter runner-up Kris McCray, but dropped a pair of decisions in his next two UFC fights to Pierce and to Jake Ellenberger. If Rocha's bread and butter - his submission game - wasn't good enough against the wrestling of Ellenberger and Pierce, then there wasn't going to be much room for him to go anywhere in the UFC's ultra-competitive welterweight division.
Were two losses enough to send Rocha packing? It's debatable. However, complaints about Pierce's wrestling miss the point.
