Middleweight bout: Nathan Marquardt defeated Thales Leites by split decision (28-27, 28-27, 27-28). Marquardt had 2 points deducted during the fight, one in round 2 (illegal knee to the head of a downed opponent) and the other in round 3 (elbow to the back of the head).
I was listening to a Greg Jackson interview and he was talk about how he didn’t consider Marquardt’s loss to Leites a real loss since it was a split decision and Nate was penalized two points, one of which was a questionable back of the head penalty. What I find ironic is that while I agree that the back of the head penalty was questionable and there is a lot of disagreement about what qualifies as “the back of the head,” Nate was not penalized for pile driving Thales. Herb Dean’s rationale is that the illegal head spike supposedly requires that the head to be driven straight down with the feet directly over their head so that they are perpendicular to the floor. In this case, while Thales’ body was perpendicular to the floor, his legs were not and were hanging from his hips. This is clearly a ridiculous technicality. So while I don’t agree with the specific two penalties Nate received, I think it is a wash, and the loss is legitimate.
Relevance: 3
Action: 4
Skill: 4
Total: 4