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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
The World Series of Fighting may actually have had enough of Rousimar Palhares' actions after Saturday's WSOF 22 event.
Matchmaker and WSOF executive Ali Abdel-Aziz said on Sunday that he plans to go back to the video of Palhares' fight with Jake Shields, and if it's as bad as he felt like it was live, they may take action against him.
"You have to understand, I'm the guy who f**king stood up for him," Abdel-Aziz started in an interview with MMAFighting.com. "I don't know if you remember or not, but I'm the guy who said, 'you know what, I'm going to sign him.' If I go back on tape and watch that f***ing fight tomorrow, and if I see Palhares held too long, and did the eye poking a couple times, he might be stripped of the title. And Jake Shields would fight the winner between [Yushin] Okami and [Jon] Fitch for the title, and I would suspend [Palhares].
"I like Palhares, I think he's a nice guy, but I think he has problems. I think he has problems, and we had an amazing event, and he didn't have to hold [the submission late]. He didn't have to hold at all because he won, he tapped him. Let him go. Let the guy go... If I don't [strip him because of that], I wouldn't be a martial artist. Just because a guy is winning and he's the champ? It wouldn't be right.
"He should've let it go, and he didn't. We'll see what happens."
Penick's Analysis: I have very little expectation on them following through on that threat, but they should. The eye gouging was blatant and egregious, happening over and over again despite the wholly toothless warnings from Steve Mazzagatti. Then to hold that submission - again - it's just beyond ridiculous that it continues to happen. It's not acceptable, and if they don't make this move themselves, nothing's likely to happen.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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