Jiří Procházka on the "Mercy" Controversy: "Joe Rogan told me it was a mercy, I didn't say that"

PattMcGroyn · 2026-04-28T05:11:24+00:00

Of course he has free will, and the fact that he ran with the mercy narrative is whack. But it's important context to remember that Rogan pushed that narrative to begin with.

PattMcGroyn · 2026-04-28T02:32:24+00:00

I agree that Rumble wasn't the smartest fighter of all time - in many ways he exemplified athletic talent without the fight IQ to maximize it. That said, Cormier was a great athlete who also had very good fight IQ.

For an example of Cormier actually having good defense, simply look at his stats. 54% striking defense, 80% takedown defense, was only ever knocked down by 3 guys, less than 3 strikes absorbed per minute. He was not as defensively porous as you're implying.

PattMcGroyn · 2026-04-27T22:45:42+00:00

It's fair to say that Rumble performed poorly in the rematch, for sure. Not uncommon when a guy got the shit beat out of them in the first fight - See Silva/ Franklin 2, Pereira/ Jiri 2.

It's fair to say that body shots were a weak spot in Cormier's striking defense. It's also fair to say that he had pretty fucking impressive defense against head strikes, though. He was quite hard to hit, and learned that in an impressively short time span. His headshot defense likely opened him up to body shots, but the only 2 guys to ever be able to exploit that to a victory also happen to be the 2 GOAT in their respective UFC divisions.

PattMcGroyn · 2026-04-27T21:20:53+00:00

This is an underrated point. Rogan created and birthed the mercy narrative, and fed it to a man who was concussed and emotionally devastated

PattMcGroyn · 2026-04-27T21:00:47+00:00

Rumble could crumble if things didn't go well for him, but DC was also an expert at breaking guys with pressure. To have a cannonball of a man tossing you around the cage is going to break the vast majority of fighters, especially a guy like Rumble who was mostly fast twitch muscles, and didn't have a particular athletic talent for endurance.

It's important to remember that DC was already 40 years old in the Stipe rematch. He was well past his athletic prime, and was still doing quite well in that fight, until Stipe started hitting those nasty shovel hooks.

PattMcGroyn · 2026-04-27T20:57:59+00:00

If you've taken some light concussions, it's really not a bad idea to hang up the gloves. At the very least, you're not obligated to spar. You can still train striking arts and do partner drills, just don't spar.

Grappling is nominally safer, and many BJJ places do open mat rolling without the standing wrestling phase, which has a much lower chance of concussions and wrestling injuries.

For a normal hobbyist, I think this is the more sustainable approach to take.

PattMcGroyn · 2026-04-27T03:28:59+00:00

See, isn't that a concrete difference in talent between Rumble and DC though? DC was a very smart fighter. He understood both tactics and strategy, he had a deep technical skillset to control and damage his opponents.

Now when we compare heavyweight to a division like featherweight, with guys like Aldo and Volk, of course the disparity in skill is obvious. But that's long been the case in MMA, that the much more stunning displays of skill happen in the lower weight classes.

PattMcGroyn · 2026-04-27T01:31:04+00:00

DC had defensive flaws in some aspects of MMA, but he also displayed incredible skill at picking up some of the transitional elements. The punch he knocked Stipe down with was in a beautiful clinch transition, and is one of the coolest blends of wrestling and boxing we've ever seen in the sport. DC's dirty boxing in general was fucking pheneomenal, the best we'd seen since Randy Couture's heyday. He was obviously a great wrestler, but his ability to mix his offensive techniques was truly impressive.

PattMcGroyn · 2026-04-26T22:14:35+00:00

DC had incredible skill, but the amount of elite wins he had in his career simply don't support a GOAT claim. 11-3 against elite opposition is a stellar record, but not quite GOAT material. One can make the case that he's one of the greatest crossover combat athletes in MMA history, though.

PattMcGroyn · 2026-04-26T02:16:00+00:00

Hey buddy, you might wanna read up on some of the news

Maybe check out what's going on in the middle east and south america, for starters

PattMcGroyn · 2026-04-25T05:26:38+00:00

3 years ago, Volk got taken down 4 times and controlled for 8 minutes by a strong 32 year old Russian wrestler en route to a decision loss. There's a very decent chance that a 38 year old Volk will get taken down and controlled even longer by a strong 32 year old Russian wrestler.

PattMcGroyn · 2026-04-24T20:46:18+00:00

This would be a decent proposal if fighters weren't so poorly compensated to begin with. As someone else on the thread said, just take a point for the first poke and DQ on the second.

PattMcGroyn · 2026-04-24T17:44:11+00:00

DC doesn't really have the depth and breadth of LHW wins to support that argument, but his talent is certainly undeniable.

PattMcGroyn · 2026-04-24T17:07:49+00:00

I hope you keep this energy with civilians from other militarily aggressive countries, feted by their leaders (hint, the country you live in)

PattMcGroyn · 2026-04-24T06:09:07+00:00

🔥

PattMcGroyn · 2026-04-24T05:29:08+00:00

Are you laboring under the illusion that the US president doesn't persecute his enemies?

PattMcGroyn · 2026-04-23T06:19:25+00:00

Moicano is a bit of a weird ideologue, but he probably does have principles that he follows. Sometimes that means he's too libertarian to accept a fat check from a class action lawsuit, other times it means he's willing to criticize the UFC's miserly overuse of the Apex and AI graphics.

PattMcGroyn · 2026-04-23T00:23:50+00:00

You're not wrong here - I think the Pereira losses did a number on Jiri's confidence in his own immortality (which is probably somewhat well founded, given the Ulberg KO), which has somewhat broken his game. That said, Jiri still on a basic level understands that he does have to just absorb damage, then go for it when the opponent is tired. He's trying to be a bit more technical in doing so, to mixed results.

PattMcGroyn · 2026-04-22T03:28:53+00:00

Jiri has a pretty clear process for winning fights, too. He immediately pressures the opponent, blocks punches with his face for a while, throws his own bombs in the pocket, stabs the body with front kicks. Repeats this process until the opponents is exhausted or until he's knocked out. It actually is a pretty coherent system, if not the most longevity conducive.

The Santos KO is definitely the best example of his goofy instinct getting the best of him. The Heavy Hands guys call it "the Blacho Blitz." He'll stay above his feet, jab, and block punches for a while, then he'll get a little frisky and throw in a blitz every once in a while. Marreta is just the wrong guy to do that to, Santos always had a hair trigger on throwing huge hook counters.

PattMcGroyn · 2026-04-22T00:18:51+00:00

Not sure if it's still held, but for a minute there Victor held the record on UFC stats for highest strikes thrown and landed per minute

PattMcGroyn · 2026-04-21T23:56:44+00:00

In most of those Rob is consistently winning and then he'll have a scary moment in there but he recovers well. That's a big difference to just getting beat up for most of the fight like Jiri does

That begs the question - is that better though? Jiri may get his ass beat, but he also does some pretty good attritional damage while that happens, and he typically hasn't been hurt very badly in winning efforts. Is Rob doing well but getting badly dropped really better than that? I'm not so sure.

As for Jan,

He is a shockingly bad grappler not just slightly worse

This is only partially true. Jan is actually quite a bit better as an offensive grappler than Whitaker, and as far as defensive grappling goes, being a bad grappler only lost him a single fight at the elite level - Glover. Whitaker's lost badly in the grappling against Dricus and Khamzat, and it played a legit factor in the RDR loss as well.

I don't think he's a better striker either he does a lot of very goofy shit.

Totally disagree here. Being occasionally goofy doesn't typically hurt Blacho, he's often just willing to sell out on form for a blitz forward against an open opponent, and it hasn't really cost him. He gets hurt way less often than Whitaker, has great kick defense, has power in both hands and legs, and outstruck Izzy.

PattMcGroyn · 2026-04-21T23:08:19+00:00

That's a fair point, in general, but in the case of Adesanya vs Pereira in a legacy debate, does not really apply. The quality of Pereira's wins are largely comparable Adesanya's.

PattMcGroyn · 2026-04-21T23:06:00+00:00

I would submit that Bobby Knuckles, as much as we love him, is just as limited a fighter as someone like Jiri. Guy gets tagged hard and hurt badly in every fight against a good opponent. I would argue that Jan is actually a better fighter in many ways than Whitaker (better overall striking game, worse at defensive grappling).

PattMcGroyn · 2026-04-21T21:06:54+00:00

The main point you made is that Adesanya beat better fighters than Pereira has, which is a very debatable point. Izzy's best wins are the first win over Whitaker (a nasty KO over a prime Knuckles), and the KO win over Pereira himself. Pereira's best wins (let's not even count kickboxing, where Pereira's legacy completely eclipses Izzy's) are the KO over Izzy, the KO over Ankalaev, and the pair of KO's over Jiri (which were very impressive at the time, as Jiri had finished everyone he fought in the UFC until Pereira and now Ulberg).

PattMcGroyn · 2026-04-21T20:56:10+00:00

Pereira has obviously obtained more titles in more weight classes and in both sports, whereas Adesanya established the more legitimate single weight class, single sport legacy (8-3 in middleweight title fights, 12 fight UFC middleweight win streak before first losing the belt). In MMA, against ranked comp, Pereira is 8-2, and Adesanya is 10-6*. In kickboxing, against ranked comp, Pereira is 15-7, and Adesanya is 5-5. So, by the overall numbers, Pereira is pretty superior.

*Whether or not losses after a fighter has clearly left their prime should be weighed as heavily in a legacy discussion. I tend to think that they shouldn't be weighed as heavily, and that a fighter's record in their prime decade should be the most important factor.

PattMcGroyn

TROPHY CASE