The Boston Crab

1. Jon Shorle is dangerous and needs to be kept away from prize fighting.

Just a selection of comments from experts in the industry:

Sports Illustrated’s Josh Gross Tweeted his frustrations:

“Jimmy Lennon says referee Jon Schorle had seen enough. I’ve seen enough of Schorle. He’s never improved as a MMA ref. Ever. Awful.

Not that Lashley is some prize. He was dead tired at the end of the second. But the outcome was a direct result of incompetent officiating.”
Jordan Breen elaborates:

“If you’re a boxing fan, you’ll be dismayed to find out that Schorle, a Californian-based official now splitting time in Texas, was the referee who stood by while Vic Darchinyan beat Victor Burgos until he had a blood clot in his brain, resulting in emergency surgery and an induced coma following the bout. He was the third man in the ring for Vitali Klitschko beating hapless Corrie Sanders to a pulp. He oversaw the Erik Morales-Zahir Raheem bout — which he allowed to devolve into a clinch-filled slip-and-slide on a soaked canvas — as well as Joel Casamayor-Michael Katsidis, in which a thrilling bout was compromised by Schorle’s all-around inattentiveness. Schorle’s reputation is such that before the rubber match in his epic trilogy with Rafael Marquez, Israel Vazquez’s camp fought viciously and successfully to have Schorle removed as the bout’s referee and replaced with Pat Russell. These are just a few recent examples.”

“However, Schorle’s most infamous MMA moment came in the March 2006 quasi-snuff film that was Rob McCullough-Olaf Alfonso. Just moments into the second round, McCullough landed a crushing right cross that sent Alfonso’s mouthguard airborne. As the supine Olaf lay on the mat with a predatory foe above him, Schorle took a cursory glance at Alfonso’s eyes — which are glassy and googly even at his most lucid — and then walked across the cage to retrieve the mouthguard. McCullough took the chance to land three absolute killshots on the defenseless Alfonso, as the miserably out-of-position Schorle made a mad dash to stop McCullough from pureeing Olaf’s face.”

Don’t think that The Boston Crab intended this article to be a hit piece on Schorle, and don’t confuse our critique of the referee with an attack on the person. We bring up his prior bad acts to emphasize the question of how an official can get away with such consistently awful officiating in well-publicized debacles and not only be rewarded with plum assignments, but also remain unscathed and unnoticed by fans and media. Schorle is not just a liability as an official that we wanted to single out, but his position is symptomatic of larger problems with the discourse surrounding officiating in MMA — problems we’re all accessories to.

Bobby Lasley wasn’t robbed, he was badly gassed and though he was holding the top mount he wasn’t in any way close to stopping Griggs with the 30 seconds remaining in the second stanza.

However we’ll never know what would have happened in the third now and Lashley not only lost the fight as a direct result of Shorle’s inexplicable neutral restart, he was also very badly beaten by his opponent. Enough is enough, people need to stop employing this man.

The most infuriating part of the whole affair is how athletic commissions seem to take pleasure in denying the undeniable by standing up for their officials time after time.

“The referee felt there was a lull in action, and he had gotten them to their feet when he saw the cut, [The referee] had the doctor look at it, and then started the action again on their feet.” -Susan Stanford, the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulations Public Information Officer

2. Both Lashley and Strikeforce have gone about this MMA thing wrong.

Lashley ahnialated Bob Sapp and Wes Sims in a matter of moments. While it looked impressive to the casual fan who doesn’t grasp how faded these men were, or any of the other casual journey men Lashley has pummled on his way to the middle: It does not doesn’t lend ring time.

We saw only recently with Shane Carwin what happens when a fighter relies on one trick and that trick runs out; instead of building on his skills and soaking up the combat minutes, Lashley chose to run through mediocre oppostition and rush his way to the big show, a myopic approach heralded by Strikeforce.

With 1:10 left on the clock Lashley posted his right leg in mount and was in perfect position to transition to an arm bar. Maybe if he’d fought a little smarter he’d have taken it.

The fact that the commentary booth had to make repeated reference to his WWE Championship should say it all; they raised a dud with no real heat or direction.

3. Bobby Lashley is not Brock Lesnar.

Brock Lesnar is a mountain of a man with a super human athletic pedigree; Bobby Lashley is an over inflated man with a good athletic pedigree.

Over the years some fighters have learned the hard way the difference between a fighters body and an action stars. See Mark Coleman, Phil Baroni and Mark Kerr for more on this. Lashley has over inflated muscles which do not lend themselves to either strength or fast twitch movement, they alo eat up a lot of oxygen. Like his early fights, Lashleys body is a testament to style over substance.

Who next for Lashley? Dave Batista, why the hell not.

Colm Ivers