Opinion: Isaac Dulgarian Bout at #UFCVegas110 Should Have Been Canceled

[jeff7b9]

I've watched it multiple times. Dulgarian was handfighting the whole time. He was only punching once he had Valle's hand controlled.

The last punch Dulgarian even throws happens with 1:55 on the clock. The finish doesn't even come until over 30 seconds later.

At 1:47 Cormier admonishes Dulgarian for not handfighting, and then Bisping corrects Cormier because Dulgarian is fighting the hands. Bisping says at 1:45: "He is there", referring to the fact that he was clearly handfighting.

Bisping repeatedly refers to Dulgarian as having "all heart" and "pure heart", including after the finish, speaking to how hard Dulgarian was fighting to not get finished.

There is nothing about Dulgarian's performance that is indicative of a fix. In retrospect it was extremely unwise to throw those punches, but lots of fighters have done that.

According to certain youtubers who researched this
They knew before the fight:

(And it is exactly the same story on multiple yt channels
And no one anywhere is denying this)

5 bets were placed within 1 hour at the same casino each for over a million dollars and it seems those were all bets for a first round finish.

16 million bet on that prelim fight

All the action happened at the same time in a heavily coordinated fashion, all.one way traffic, all unfathomably large betting uncommon for fights of such minimal magnitude.


Posts were up and publicly viewable discussing the fix prior to the fight

Betting sights were refusing action

UFC did the fight anyway.


I can not dumb it down for you any more than that.

 

[SKYNET]

How that could happen after the Darrick Minner-Nuerdanbieke Shayilan fiasco from 2022 is beyond me.

The fact that Minner and Dulgarian both have ties to lifetime UFC banned James Krause and also Mark Montoya (love his coaching btw), who was a Krause coach in the past is a massive red flag for me.

Spoiler: Mark Montoya also coaches...

David Onama

 

[mkess101]

I've watched it multiple times. Dulgarian was handfighting the whole time. He was only punching once he had Valle's hand controlled.

The last punch Dulgarian even throws happens with 1:55 on the clock. The finish doesn't even come until over 30 seconds later.

At 1:47 Cormier admonishes Dulgarian for not handfighting, and then Bisping corrects Cormier because Dulgarian is fighting the hands. Bisping says at 1:45: "He is there", referring to the fact that he was clearly handfighting.

Bisping repeatedly refers to Dulgarian as having "all heart" and "pure heart", including after the finish, speaking to how hard Dulgarian was fighting to not get finished.

There is nothing about Dulgarian's performance that is indicative of a fix. In retrospect it was extremely unwise to throw those punches, but lots of fighters have done that.

All I can say is you drill that position nonstop in training and and as someone who's had to do it more times than I could count, his technique was trash. Not just the punching. The first time Del Valle attempts the choke, his forearm is on the chin. It's incredibly easy to use both arms to push that arm up over the face and make him start over. Dulgarian doesn't even try.

Do I absolutely know it was fixed? No. Does it look bad? Absolutely.

 

[SKYNET]

All I can say is you drill that position nonstop in training and and as someone who's had to do it more times than I could count, his technique was trash. Not just the punching. The first time Del Valle attempts the choke, his forearm is on the chin. It's incredibly easy to use both arms to push that arm up over the face and make him start over. Dulgarian doesn't even try.

Do I absolutely know it was fixed? No. Does it look bad? Absolutely.

Great point, Dulgarian does a lot of hand fighting but never really latches on to the choke with both arms. Perhaps a bit of panic or fatigue? sure that's possible but there really wasn't a solid effort by Dulgarian to use both arms at the end, even though both arms are free.

 

[mkess101]

Great point, Dulgarian does a lot of hand fighting but never really latches on to the choke with both arms. Perhaps a bit of panic or fatigue? sure that's possible but there really wasn't a solid effort by Dulgarian to use both arms at the end, even though both arms are free.

Sure hope it wasn't fatigue 2-3 minutes into the fight!

 

[SKYNET]

Sure hope it wasn't fatigue 2-3 minutes into the fight!

I try to give the benefit of the doubt to these guys never having competed myself

 

[jeff7b9]

I try to give the benefit of the doubt to these guys never having competed myself

Does millions of dollars being bet on that guy to lose via round 1 stoppage not sufficiently diminish the amount of benefit of the doubt you extend someone?

 

[mkess101]

I try to give the benefit of the doubt to these guys never having competed myself

I did compete, albeit only 2 fights and it was low level. But a shit ton of bjj tournaments too. I feel like I have a good grasp of what I'm seeing. That seemed really weird to me live even and I didn't have sound on. Was at a party and watching on my phone with a buddy and said at the time "I don't know what he's doing..."

At the time didn't even think about it being fixed. Just assumed terrible technique.

 

[JBJ was here]

Welp, the FBI and the UFC feel differently, thats why theyre doing an investigation.

That's not how investigations work. Clearly the FBI feels that it's reasonably likely that there was criminal activity involving betting on the Dulgarian fight. Maybe he fixed the fight. Maybe someone with insider information about Dulgarian being sick or injured made bets on the fight or sold that information without Dulgarian's involvement. Maybe some whale noticed Dulgarian looking particularly sick or injured and placed bets without insider information. Maybe being told that there was suspicion of fight fixing fucked with Dulgarian's head and caused him to lose focus and lose in the first round. Maybe the bets and the loss were coincidental. The investigation is to find out which of these things, or some alternative, is true.

That an investigation is happening in no way means that the FBI is certain that a crime was committed or certain about who committed a crime if a crime was committed; even an actual indictment or prosecution wouldn't mean that.

And its why Dulgarian has been released.

His contract was up and there's an ongoing FBI investigation into one of his fights. That's more than enough to fully explain why Dulgarian wasn't signed by the UFC.

 

[don't ask]

Tae Hyun Bang is not enjoying his time right now as we speak in the slammer, with a large imposing shadow hanging around in the corner of the slammers shower area.

 

[jeff7b9]

Tae Hyun Bang is not enjoying his time right now as we speak in the slammer, with a large imposing shadow hanging around in the corner of the slammers shower area.

What the fuck is this??


That is a perfect environment for mold and mildew to run wild!!

Moisture + no sunlight??

Fuckin amateurs.

 

[Only Here for Attachments]

His contract was up and there's an ongoing FBI investigation into one of his fights. That's more than enough to fully explain why Dulgarian wasn't signed by the UFC.

He just signed a new contract in late August:

Isaac Dulgarian has signed a new contract with the UFC and will fight on November

Isaac Dulgarian has signed his second UFC contract and will return to the Octagon on November 1. The Armenian-rooted fighter already holds 2 UFC wins.

sportaran.com

 

[HI SCOTT NEWMAN]

That's what always creeped me out about the slammer, so I behave myself and am a good citizen... I mean I guess it would be ok if there were very handsome fella's in there like yourself, but I'm just not gonna find someone like you in the slammer.

 

[usernamee]

All I can say is you drill that position nonstop in training and and as someone who's had to do it more times than I could count, his technique was trash. Not just the punching. The first time Del Valle attempts the choke, his forearm is on the chin. It's incredibly easy to use both arms to push that arm up over the face and make him start over. Dulgarian doesn't even try.

Do I absolutely know it was fixed? No. Does it look bad? Absolutely.

There's been a few times the last year or so where I have been shocked with how poor someone's RNC defense was. Never thought that it could've been a fixed fight though. But makes me wonder now.. Unless you have the elite of the elite in BJJ on your back or you got dropped and then had your back taken there's really no excuse to get RNCd after just a few tries these days

 

[mkess101]

There's been a few times the last year or so where I have been shocked with how poor someone's RNC defense was. Never thought that it could've been a fixed fight though. But makes me wonder now.. Unless you have the elite of the elite in BJJ on your back or you got dropped and then had your back taken there's really no excuse to get RNCd after just a few tries these days

Absolutely. These guys drill this nonstop. They'll bring in fresh guys too so that you're tired and the guy on your back isn't just to make it second nature on the technique.

Usually when you see a successful rnc in an MMA fight, it's because the guy on the back is landing damaging strikes and forcing the guy to defend that and the choke opens up. That didn't happen in this one. It was just a slow march toward the choke and looked sketchy to me.

 

[fractal]

Yall complain about fighter pay and treatment but when Dana gives a fighter the benefit of the doubt, ya freak out.

There's was doubt over there?

 

[EndlessCritic]

5 bets were placed within 1 hour at the same casino each for over a million dollars and it seems those were all bets for a first round finish.

You're going to need to post an actual source for this claim.

I have a very difficult time believing that a casino in Vegas is accepting a $1 million dollar bet on an exotic prop on a UFC Apex prelim. The market liquidity isn't high enough to accept a prop like that.

The maximum wager the casino would allow would likely be five figures maximum. Six figures is exceedingly unlikely for a prop like this. Seven figures is an incredible claim requiring incredible evidence.

 

[EndlessCritic]

Usually when you see a successful rnc in an MMA fight, it's because the guy on the back is landing damaging strikes and forcing the guy to defend that and the choke opens up. That didn't happen in this one. It was just a slow march toward the choke and looked sketchy to me.

So you think Chiesa vs Beneil Dariush looked suspicious?

 

[mkess101]

So you think Chiesa vs Beneil Dariush looked suspicious?

**Usually

When I see it and then see there was shit ton of rd 1 prop bets that came in late on a sizeable underdog that then...wins in rd 1? Yeah that's suspicious when combined with how that fight looked.

 

[sonhow]

No shit?
Theres another form of sports entertainement and its called the wwe