|
Frank's Version of Lay and Pray
A few people have made the assertion that Frank Shamrock was winning that fight. Sort of hard for me to see how that arguement can be made, but ok. So maybe they are Frank fans (heck, maybe Frank, himself), and are looking through "rose colored glasses". Frank did catch Renzo with 2, maybe 3 stiff shots in the fight, but nothing that made me think Renzo was in real trouble. Renzo was able to take down, and control Frank at will. Yes, you can argue that Renzo should have made a better effort with the GnP, or submission attempts. You can also argue that in addition to the take downs and ground control, Renzo made consistant effort to even further improve his position with knee on stomach, and mount attempts. I also observed Frank making NO effort to improve his ground position, or make any submission attempts from his back, either. So those of you that argue that just because you are on the bottom you are not loosing (about Frank), read the last sentence and play again when you have a better arguement.
Now, Frank seems to assert that he was unaware of the rules, or something to that nature. He was either unaware of the rules, or simply unwilling to follow them. Either way, it doesn't speak well of a professional. Particularly a professional that calls himself a martial artist.
I figure he was very aware of the rules. First of all, he's a smart guy. A fighter that takes a fight and doesn't know the rules is either an incredible fool, or there has been some level of negligence (probably criminal) on the part of the promoter, etc. I don't think either of those things are true in this case. One thing I did notice was Frank seeming to wait for the fight to stood back up. He basically "laid and prayed" for Renzo to not choke him, brake his arm, or mount and pound him because he figured that the standing haymaker (ala Cesar Gracie) was his only real chance. The only thing I saw him do was to really try to keep Renzo from mounting him.
Ok, I think if you watch the fight, you'll see Frank waiting and wanting for the fight to be stood back up each time it was on the ground. The first time, you even see him knodding his head, as if to say, "Yeah, thats right, stand it back up!", kind of a thing. If he was THAT aware of the rules, and how they impacted his fight strategy, its hard to imagine that he didn't know that the knees would be illegal. Thus we can conclude that Frank DID know the rules and chose to ignore them. While Renzo should have argueably made more submission/GnP effort, you can't ignore that Frank broke the rules. You can't ignore that Frank likely knowingly broke the rules.
Yes, Frank Shamrock has given us the EliteXC version of the Lay and Pray.
|
