You can’t write a regular column about douchebags without occasionally getting a little douche on yourself. Of course, not literally, although the idea of walking around all day telling people you’d just been making a salad is mildly amusing. No, what I mean here is that he who fights douchebags must take care that he not become a douchebag himself.
I say this as a preface to this column because I had to defer to the better angels of my nature to avoid using the term “Cock Joshcheck” as I wrote this. I sincerely felt entitled to use this moniker for the guy, given his behavior last night. Also, as this is a MMA website and not a politics one, I had to refrain from making a “Daley-Kos” joke. But alas, I’m a dick, not a douchebag, so I did neither.
For those of you who were busy fapping to a Jet Li film, or playing Modern Warfare 2 instead of watching the UFC last night (in the case of the latter, you can do both; I did), there was a veritable douche fountain on display in the Josh Koscheck/Paul Daley fight. It was as if just before the fight, the Padouchesha Emperor, from his throne, commanded “The Douche must flow”.
Ok, so you didn’t read Dune either. Whatever. There were two incidents in the fight that will forever go down in MMA history as a low point. And by “forever”, I mean, for a few months until the memory span of the average MMA fan expires.
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[strike]Coc[/strike]Josh Koscheck blatantly faked being hit with an illegal knee. Seriously, I’ve seen better acting at a no-budget wrestling promotion out of Waco, Tx. He laid there on the canvas clasping his head when Daley’s knee didn’t even make contact with it.
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Paul Daley clocked Koscheck after the final bell. Not much to explain here. He walked over and just suckerpunched him. And it was a crappy punch too, since it didn’t wipe off Koscheck’s perpetual shit-eating grin; it actually made it bigger.
The aftermath of this fight can be boiled down into two sentences: Dana White permanently barred Daley from ever fighting again in the UFC. And Koscheck admitted in a post-fight interview with ESPN that he’d been running his mouth to Daley during the entire fight, egging him on.
As someone who judges MMA I’ve seen hundreds of fights, close enough to have shirts ruined from bloodspatter (and, unfortunately, close enough to learn that you should keep your mouth shut at all times unless you want some dude’s sweat flung into it… retch). I can count on one hand the number of fights in which the two guys spoke to each other during the match. And that’s not just because we’ve got some good refs out here, and maybe or some classier fighters. I’ve judged fighters from all over the planet, for M-1, Strikeforce, etc.
Nearly all of them kept their mouths shut.
Now don’t misunderstand me here:
A.) Daley was wrong, no doubt about it. It doesn’t matter if the lilly-[strike]white[/strike]tan Koscheck was whispering sweet nothings about Daley giving up fighting to go pick cotton into his ear. Clocking someone after the bell is a criminal act. If you can’t settle it in the cage, train harder.
B.) I realize that animosity sells tickets. Ken Shamrock and Tito Ortiz are both masters at this. And they’re both grown-ups in that once the fight is over, win or lose, it’s time to move on. I don’t think Koscheck has learned this lesson, or even the lesson that it really isn’t personal.
Regardless, I’m aggravated. If it weren’t for the fact that Mauricio “Shogun” Rua beat Lyoto Machida down so hard last night that a dozen Karate schools went out of business, I’d probably be genuinely cranky.
Instead, I’m simply looking forward to the humiliation Koscheck is going to suffer at the hands of GSP. I’m no fan of the French Canadian (or his floppy head), but nobody can dispute that he’s a genuine class act, and that the sport needs one hundred and thirteen more fighters just like him.
Josh Coatcheck, Paul Daley, you are our co-Douchebags of the Month.