Is TJ Dillashaw really retired? Is the CSAC leading the way in an attempt to make judging in MMA more reliable? Is Merab Dvalishvili one of the most fun bantamweights on social media? These are the burning questions answered in your latest Sunday MMA Quick Hits.
(Disclaimer: we make no attempt to actually answer any of these questions, but we do talk about them).
Is this a viable defense to escape submission attempts?
Well, not in a sanctioned fight anyway… but Merab appears to be having fun in Jamaica.
Headlock stayed tight just as expected🤖 😂 #ILoveMerab #gotosleep #lol pic.twitter.com/3uFQYitiBF
— Matt “The Steamrolla”Frevola (@SteamRollaa) December 16, 2022
The Georgian bantamweight has a wild social media game these days.
A little sparring session between Merab Dvalishvili and 6'4 kickboxer Katarina Kavaleva 😆 pic.twitter.com/LR36YIygaz
— Matysek (@Matysek88) October 18, 2022
Is T.J. Dillashaw actually retiring?
Sure, on the surface, it looks like T.J. Dillashaw is using the “retirement loophole” in the UFC’s Anti-Doping Policy to take time off an heal up from a recent shoulder injury.
For those unaware, fighters who retire are removed from the USADA testing pool (meaning they’re not longer drug tested), but can return to competition after six months of testing, or after submitting two clean tests with which the six month window is waived — at the discretion of the UFC.
However, Dillashaw has gotten into the Cannabis business (the legal one, of course), and if business is booming when he’s healed up, he may never return to the fight game. At least, that’s according to what the former UFC bantamweight champ said on Brendan Schaub’s Food Truck Diaries.
“We’ll see how successful things turn out for me outside the cage and just how busy I am and what life looks like,” Dillashaw told Food Truck Diaries. “I might be so busy — I already am kinda that busy — that I don’t even have time to come back. Even when I did come back, I had to put business in the back to deal with the fight.
“That business is gonna pay me for the rest of my life where this fight’s only gonna pay me now. But when I was eight weeks out it was like, ‘Alright, sorry, guys. If you need to get ahold of me I’m not dealing with anything business related unless it’s gotta do with my fight.’”
Conor McGregor trolls Artem Lobov after winning early legal skirmish
The real court battle is still a way’s off, but Conor McGregor’s legal team won a small victory recently. Per a report by the Irish Independent, Lobov’s request to have his lawsuit over Proper No. 12 Whiskey, which he insists he helped establish, heard in Ireland’s Commercial Court has been rejected.
Had the request been granted, the matter would have been fast-tracked. However, Justice Denis McDonald ruled that “a significant lapse of time” had occurred between McGregor launching Proper No. 12, and Lobov filing a lawsuit seeking a portion of the profits.
McGregor is also being sued for defamation after labeling Lobov a “rat” in response to the lawsuit, but in an affidavit filed by his legal team, showed evidence of Lobov stating that “I swear on my child’s life I will not take a cent out of the whiskey deal.”
In response to the latest news, McGregor opted to call Lobov something other than a rat. In a since-deleted post to social media, the Irish star instead called his former friend a “little jonny head.” And a f*cking idiot.
We’re pretty sure “jonny head” means d*ckhead.
Speaking of… Jake Shields and Mike Jackson embarrass themselves at UFC PI
There are no winners in this sorry state of affairs. Jake Shields, who of late is best known for courting the alt-right on Twitter, got into it with Mike Jackson, best known as one of CM Punk’s two opponents in the UFC, at the UFC Performance Institute in Las Vegas.
In video posted to Twitter by Shields, the former Strikeforce fighter and UFC title challenger can be seen in mount on Jackson, slapping him as Jackson calls for someone to get Shields off him.
Finally ran into the bitch Mike Jackson
He quickly discovered the difference between calling people Nazis In person vs on Twitter
This racist is lucky so many people were there to save his pathetic racist ass pic.twitter.com/90luT0YjfG
— Jake Shields (@jakeshieldsajj) December 16, 2022
The beef apparently began on, you guessed it, Twitter, where Jackson has a history of inflammatory statements, including labeling himself a “snow roach exterminator.” Jackson, reacting to Shield’s non-stop flood of alt-right talking points, labelled Shields a “Nazi.”
We’re happy to label them both as unprofessional. Both are now threatening legal action on the other, per an MMA Fighting report citing both fighters. Jackson says he intends to file a police report, while Shields has discussed suing for slander.
Rather than legal action, a humble suggestion to wrap up this story: book a three round exhibition bout between them. Each strike landed results in a one week ban from Twitter. Loser gets an extra year tacked on.
Anything to get these two away from social media for a while.
CSAC curtails judges travel immediately ahead of events
Thanks to Douglas Crosby handing in a trash scorecard in Raufeon Stots vs. Danny Sabatello, then flying across the country to do the same in Paddy Pimblett vs. Jared Gordon the next night, the CSAC has introduced a new rule curtailing extreme travel by judges immediately prior to events.
As first reported by Ariel Helwani, judges and refs in California will be allowed to travel no further than Nevada within one day of an assignment in the state.
In part, the new memorandum (h/t MMA Junkie) reads:
“It is imperative that you be at your best for those assignments and keep in mind the travel distance between locations when accepting consecutive assignments. If you work in California on a Friday, the Commission finds it acceptable for you to work as far as Nevada on Saturday or vice versa. If you accept an out of state assignment that is within one day of an assignment in California, you may be removed from the California assignment if you are being required to travel further than the state of Nevada.”
