Was Chael Sonnen vs Tito Ortiz a work?

I've never fought or trained MMA, so take my opinion for what it's worth, but... This fight did look rather odd in hindsight. There's the way Chael Sonnen seems to have decent choke in place, but bails on it. There's the odd way Chael Sonnen sits up when he's mounted -that's not a normal escape attempt from an experienced grappler. Then there's the submission by Tito Ortiz where the choking arm isn't quite choking anybody.

When I watched the fight live on TV it seemed like a regular fight -a good one even. But reading the critiques this morning, has me believing that his may have indeed been a work. Thoughts?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm1N6EKrNFY

May have been a legit face crank, although Chael said "I couldn't breathe."

Chaels response in the presser about it didn't really quell my 'suspicion' either.

To me that had to be crank, couldn't see how that was a choke at all and when you're getting cranked you'll remember that it was cranking when asked about it. So to not say that in the presser was weird to me.

That's what happens when you take two guys way past retirement and pay them to "fight".

IMO there is way too much smoke for there not to be fire with Bellator, this is the second time a headline fight gave a questionable outcome. Kimbo/Shamrock where Kimbo was able to just pull Shamrock's arm off despite Shamrock being an experienced submission artist who would have known better, now this obvious face crank that they're trying to sell as a RNC.

That's not even including the Ralek fight where Hisati Kato, a man who had never seen the third round and had won all of his matches by TKO, suddenly becomes a scared fighter who is afraid to exchange with a man that has no stand up and the two times he did engage he walked him against the cage where Ralek just turtled up. He could have ended that fight at any time and should have been able to smell the blood in the water. It was obvious to me that he was supposed to let Ralek look decent and go the distance.

It sucks because they have some great talent, but I have a hard time believing their fights are legit.

I feel that cheal should have dropped into a Japanese neck tie after bailing on the gullotine, Tito has had neck problems forever so I feel he would have tapped to the neck crank. It was there. Oh well. Tito got that takedown like butter too. Good fight, fun to watch.

http://smackhisface.com/2017/01/22/f...a-fixed-fight/

interesting

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ric

I've never fought or trained MMA, so take my opinion for what it's worth, but... This fight did look rather odd in hindsight. There's the way Chael Sonnen seems to have decent choke in place, but bails on it. There's the odd way Chael Sonnen sits up when he's mounted -that's not a normal escape attempt from an experienced grappler. Then there's the submission by Tito Ortiz where the choking arm isn't quite choking anybody.

When I watched the fight live on TV it seemed like a regular fight -a good one even. But reading the critiques this morning, has me believing that his may have indeed been a work. Thoughts?

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People quickly forget that Chael has a long history of 'giving up' in fights when he's put in bad positions. Before his improbable ascension to perennial contender, he had been written off because of a series of losses by submission. If you recall, part of the story behind his original comeback (when he mauled Dan Miller and Nate Marquart despite many deep guillotine attempts) was that he'd finally fixed his weird psychological habit of letting himself lose fights he was otherwise winning. If you watch between Rounds 4 and Round 5 of the first Anderson Silva fight, you can see Matt Lindland in Chael's corner screaming at him not to give up (which he did, lol). I'd have to watch the Tito fight again, but it looked to me like Chael went for some slick submission chain when he reversed Tito's single leg and when it didn't work he just folded. Also, Tito has always been known for having surprisingly good BJJ.