Video category button Ring girls category button Forums site button Fighters site button

standup

EliteXC Ref Explains Nelson-Arlovski Stand-Up


Andrei Arlovski vs. Roy Nelson - Watch more free videos

I have to say this for AOL Fanhouse's Michael David Smith, when he sinks his teeth into something he doesn't let go until he gets what he wants. While the rest of us have been stuck on this Seth Petruzelli situation, he was focused on a different aspect of Saturday's EliteXC event. Seems that the odd stand-up in the Andrei Arlovski-Roy Nelson bout (see above, the stand-up comes at around the 4:27 mark) bothered Smith. So he kept after referee Jorge Ortiz until he got an answer:

"When I'm working a fight, they're told in the locker room before the fight to keep working, continue the action moving," Ortiz said. "Nelson did attempt the kimura. When he lost the kimura, at that point they had spent a good part of the round on the ground and I felt there wasn't a reasonable attempt at a submission, at a finish. At that point I decided: Let's get them up. Let's see if he can improve the position, because in my opinion there wasn't a reasonable attempt at finishing the fight."

"In my opinion he wasn't active enough," Ortiz said. "I thought he needed to be more aggressive on the ground to attempt to finish the fight, and when I feel the action is at a point where it's stale and it's not going anywhere, at that point is where I decide to change it up and get something going here."

Of course, what he "got going" was a stand-up fight that was most definitely more in Arlovski's favor than Nelson's. That's not to say that Nelson would have won without the stand-up, but he had achieved a dominant position on the mat with plenty of time left in the round.

"Big Country", as you might imagine, was also none too pleased with the stand-up when I called him earlier this week to ask what he was thinking when Ortiz brought the fighters back to their feet.