If Frank Mir breaks someone's arm for the 3rd time, should he be sanctioned?

Pretty much every other ****ing guy can manage to submit his opponent without snapping his arm.

Sure the odd bad injury happens and is inevitable, as I've said what? Five times so far in this thread? That's the nature of a fight.

But IF Frank Mir does it again, that will be THREE arms he's snapped. And that means he's doing it deliberately because he wants that reputation.

If it's no big deal, should we just go the other way then? If a guy has his opponent in an armbar, should he IMMEDIATELY move to snap the arm as quickly as possible? It's well within the rules, should every armbar last for 1 second and finish with an ugly break?

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:good

Good post. I agree that the onus is on the guy who is trapped to stop the fight.

The problem comes when you have guys like Nog who have that machismo bull**** about never tapping, up against guys like Mir who obviously take pleasure in breaking bones.

It's a problem that doesn't have a clear-cut, easy solution.

The guy who is trapped should tap to avoid the break. But then you get this bull**** about not tapping no matter what, which basically forces the dominant fighter to break the arm.

On the other hand, you can't really order the dominant fighter to ease off the submission, because that's opening the door for his opponent to escape and get back into the fight.

Can you give the ref power to stop the fight if he thinks the armbar is secure enough? Seems to me that'll lead to a lot of controversial calls.

There's no easy solution.

But Frank Mir in particular, IF he breaks a third arm, that's over the top. The UFC can't use that in promoting him, but they can't really punish him for driving audiences away from the sport either, because it's not illegal to break a guy's arm.

It's an awkward situation. Go one way, and you're encouraging the possibility of terrible injuries on live TV, which hurts the sport. Go the other way, and you're punishing a guy for fighting to the best of his ability according to the rules.

Personally, as stated a few times, I completely accept that breaks will happen every so often.

But if Frank Mir does it a third time, that means that Frank Mir gets off on doing it. And that is a problem for the sport. Once, **** happens. Twice, well that could be unlucky. Three times, this guy is setting out to break arms.

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I have watched both fights, and I also know the circumstances behind the rematch.

Mir felt highly disrespected by Nog coming into the fight, and he absolutely wanted to break the arm of the BJJ legend. He did it very deliberately, and he has expressed satisfaction about it after the fight.

It is Nog's fault for trying to roll out of it instead of tapping when he was trapped, sure. The blame is on Nog's shoulders. But IMO Mir could have won the fight without breaking the arm, but he chose to break it to make a point.

AND THAT IS WITHIN THE RULES. I AM NOT SUGGESTING THAT MIR SHOULD BE PUNISHED FOR THE NOG FIGHT.

BUT.

If it happens a THIRD time, then it has clearly gotten out of hand. If pretty much all the other BJJ guys can submit their opponents without breaking bones, but Mir somehow finds it necessary to break the arms of three different opponents, then that says more about Frank Mir than it does about MMA.

That **** may have been no problem in the Dark Ages, but nowadays MMA is a legitimate sport. And it's a legitimate question to ask, that if one guy snaps 3 limbs on live TV, since that's CLEARLY very bad for the sport, should he face some form of sanction?

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I've never seen the fight in question. I gather that it was much worse than either of Mir's breaks, because Palhares was cranking the hold while his opponent was basically screaming for him to stop, whereas Mir wasn't.

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I'm not taking a stand. I'm asking a question. Nowhere have I stated that Mir needs to be punished for breaking Nog's or Sylvia's arms. In fact I've clearly said in capital letters that he shouldn't.

I'm only pointing out that this sort of thing IS an issue, and regardless of what fans who post on internet forums think, the reality is that casual fans are going to run from the sport in droves if every second card features a guy getting his forearm snapped.

Obviously neither Fox nor the UFC wants that.

Obviously most MMA fans would rather see a tap than a snap.

So what should be done?

It's a question, meant to generate discussion. I haven't come out and taken a firm stand either way, instead I have gone out of my way to point out that there are at least two legitimate but opposing viewpoints, because it's a difficult issue. :bart

Another thing I have an issue with is Jones' habit of kicking at his opponent's knees hoping to hyperextend them, as he did to Rampage.

But that's because I look at MMA as being more a sport than a streetfight. To me, kicking someone's knee like that is a cheap move and tarnishes your eventual win a little bit.

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