Penick's Take
PENICK: Paul Daley and Josh Koscheck both lose respect at UFC 113; Dana White makes the right call in cutting Daley
May 9, 2010 - 11:12:27 AM PENICK: Paul Daley and Josh Koscheck both lose respect at UFC 113; Dana White makes the right call in cutting Daley

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

Mauricio "Shogun" Rua's spectacular knockout victory over Lyoto Machida last night at UFC 113 is unfortunately not the story of the event, as the actions of Josh Koscheck and Paul Daley in their co-main event bout have overshadowed the former Pride superstar's return to the light heavyweight summit.

What was a highly anticipated showdown to crown the next challenger to Georges St. Pierre's Welterweight Championship, along with a spot as coach on The Ultimate Fighter opposite the Champ, became a somewhat joke of a fight marred by Koscheck diving in the first round, coasting to a conservative and fairly boring decision and Daley committing one of the most idiotic acts of frustration seen in the Octagon.

By now fans everywhere have seen the sucker punch thrown by Daley, and Dana White wasted no time in cutting the Brit, claiming Daley will never again fight in the UFC. While there have been some statements that White is being hypocritical and some comparisons being thrown to the Strikeforce incident on CBS a few weeks ago, White made the right call here.

For starters, the two incidents of this past month are entirely different situations that deserve entirely different consequences.

With the melee that ensued at Strikeforce: Nashville on CBS, the incident came due to Miller's interruption of Jake Shields' post fight interview, and the Gracie camp's overreaction to his being in the cage. The 7-1 beat down featured a current UFC fighter in Nate Diaz and a fighter the UFC is courting in Jake Shields, yet Diaz is still employed and the UFC is still planning on adding Shields to the mix later this year. That doesn't sit well with some people when Daley is getting cut.

The Shields incident was ridiculous and in some ways just as bad as Daley's actions, but Shields was not involved with the worst part of it. For Nate Diaz, he was not an official member of Shields' corner that night, and shouldn't have been brought into the cage in the first place; but in all honesty he'd be facing criminal charges for his part in it and not anything from the commission, and the UFC could have dealt with him as they've done anyone else that's had trouble with the law.

With him not likely to face any criminal charges for his part in the incident, his involvement remains known really just to the hardcore fans; and considering it didn't happen on UFC time in the Octagon or in front of the UFC's audience, his actions just aren't as harmful to the sport or the UFC as Daley's.

Daley brought the cut on himself further with his comments and demeanor to Dana White after the incident. White talked to Ariel Helwani of MMAFighting.com after the event, and discussed what went down.

"Everybody makes mistakes, we all make mistakes, but there's no place in this sport and there's no place in this business for stuff like that," he said. " What bothered me even more was his answer when I went up to the Octagon after and he said, 'ah, I didn't hear the bell.' When I asked him 'Do you want to continue fighting in the UFC?' He shrugged his shoulders and turned. There you go, now you won't."

"To blatantly walk up and punch a guy long after the bell rang, there's just no place for that in this organization."

This is the crux of it here, too. If Daley actually made the claim that he didn't hear the bell then he was flat out lying and knew it, as Koscheck was in top position as the round ended and he walked around Dan Miragliotta to throw the left hook. When a fight is over and that bell rings, the punches stop. It goes against everything this sport is about for that punch to be thrown, and it's completely unacceptable.

With the UFC having issues with the commission in Quebec last year and still trying to get sanctioned in multiple states and in areas in Canada as well, this idiotic and overly emotional action is compounded and made even worse for the UFC and the sport. White needed to make an example of Daley after he had ripped into the Strikeforce melee, and by coming down swiftly with punishment he sent a clear message that this is not part of the sport, it's not something that happens in the cage when the testosterone is flowing and its not something that the UFC is going to accept.

It's also not without precedent for the UFC to do this, though they have been selective with how they've doled out certain punishments. But you can just look back to Renato "Babalu" Sobral's victory over David Heath at UFC 74 for a key example. Sobral was released from the UFC after refusing to release a choke hold on Heath after the referee stopped the fight, later saying that Heath deserved it and needed to learn respect.

With this event being covered by ESPN's MMA Live for the first time on the network instead of online, this incident came at a terrible time in a high profile event at a time where Strikeforce had already lowered the perception of the sport with the April brawl. Nearly fifty percent of all MMATorch readers who voted in the poll last night agreed with the lifetime ban as well. Daley's now a casualty of circumstance and stupidity, and he's got no one to blame but himself.

That doesn't absolve Koscheck, however, for his ridiculous and disgraceful display in the first round. With replays showing Daley's knee coming nowhere near hitting his head, Koscheck milked the extra time given and initially got a point taken from Daley before it was given back.

Koscheck is sticking with the story that he got hit, telling Helwani, "He hit me with something while I was down. I got hit pretty hard. I could have quit, I got up and kept fighting."

He didn't leave it at that, either, calling Daley a "blatant cheater" and saying, "He had oil all over him… I could smell it from the beginning."

He doesn't have many believers that he got hit by anything, as we've all seen the replay. Dana White said of the knee, "What I saw, what I thought is that he did not get hit with that knee, he thought he did, so..."

If that was all Koscheck did last night it would be bad enough, but he decided (smartly, to be honest) to stay conservative and use his dominant positions to ride out a boring decision, and then defiantly cut a heel promo straight out of the WWE playbook to the Montreal crowd.

Both fighters lost the respect of fans everywhere last night, but for Daley his actions were just worse than Koscheck's. Now he finds himself out of the organization after being a win away from a Title shot and Koscheck will move on to what will be his most lucrative career fight and his highest profile fight as well after season 12 of TUF. It may not seem fair, but again, Daley brought this all on himself in a momentary lapse of all sense and all blame lies squarely on him. Dana White and the UFC did what they should have done with this situation, and though it's unfortunate that it happened and went down this way, it is what it is and his sucker punch is simply something that can't be tolerated in this sport.

RELATED STORY: UFC 113 RESULTS: Paul Daley cut following cheap shot of Josh Koscheck at UFC 113 (w/Penick's Analysis): [CLICK TO READ FULL ARTICLE]