Game of Flinches: Arlovski’s 20 Seconds to Forget
Josh Gross Apr 18, 2006
It’s 1:30 on a Sunday afternoon in the still lobby of the Anaheim
Marriot.
Less than 24 hours ago, Andrei Arlovski (Pictures) stood front and center on the growing UFC stage. Now he sits, almost alone, little more than a hotel patron waiting to return home after a long business trip.
Since Saturday, life has offered Arlovski a sequence of moments to
reflect upon. Some are freeze-framed. Others stuck in play or slow
motion.
If the Belarusian’s mind was TiVo'd, the loss, which cost him the UFC heavyweight belt, would play “every f___ing minute.”
A sign of things to come?
“Everybody told me ‘oh, you’re the champion. You’re the best.’ So it’s not good for me,” Arlovski admitted. “I understand right now it was another of my mistakes. For everything I took a lesson, and for next time I will be smarter.”
If baseball is a game of inches, mixed martial arts is a game of flinches. And somehow the Pat Miletich (Pictures)-trained Sylvia found a way to make “The Pitbull” pause.
Unlike their first bout, when an evil overhand right put Sylvia down, Arlovski didn’t move on the 6-8 fighter’s long legs, even though he said he hoped to end the fight in similar fashion to the original.
Why did perhaps the most athletic heavyweight in mixed martial arts freeze?
He did not know.
“I was sure it was the same punch,” Arlovski told Sherdog.com, thinking the end was upon him. “Twenty seconds more and I stay the champion.”
Instead, the Windy City trained Arlovski said he was “surprised” when a resurrected Sylvia, born in Ellsworth, Maine, shook the cobwebs off and, using a quick turn of the shoulders, countered a lunging right hand lead with a perfect hook-uppercut to the jaw.
Being stopped by the hard-hitting Sylvia, who owned the UFC heavyweight title for seven months before testing positive for steroids in September 2003, was clearly not in the popular former champion’s game plan.
If it was: the end would have been one of the few things he did right during the fight.
Falling short in a strategy that called for a stiff jab, plenty of movement and the use of a noticeable edge in speed, Arlovski said he failed both his boxing and Brazilian jiu-jitsu trainers with Saturday’s performance.
Later in the day, while Arlovski continued rewinding and watching, Sylvia earned a warm reception after throwing out the first pitch of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ rubber match against the rival San Francisco Giants.
Wearing his new gold UFC belt over a new Dodger blue warm-up jersey, the champion cut loose a baseball with the same arm that chopped Arlovski in half.
Like Sylvia after referee Herb Dean (Pictures) signaled the end of the fight, the pitch was high.
Nearly impossible to miss in a crowd of 47,000-plus people, Sylvia had hundreds of people come up to him during the three-hour game and request autographs and photos. He loved every moment of it. That’s why winning the belt back meant so much too him.
If the reaction to Sylvia was any indication, a third fight between the champions would be welcomed. Both men have already embraced the rubber match.
“Right now I beat him once, he beat me [Saturday] so we’ll see who’s the true champion,” Arlovski promised. “Tim or I.”
Twenty-four hours ago, it didn’t seem like a realistic possibility worth pondering. Clearly, sitting here now, it’s obvious a lot can happen in 20 seconds.
Less than 24 hours ago, Andrei Arlovski (Pictures) stood front and center on the growing UFC stage. Now he sits, almost alone, little more than a hotel patron waiting to return home after a long business trip.
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If the Belarusian’s mind was TiVo'd, the loss, which cost him the UFC heavyweight belt, would play “every f___ing minute.”
With Arlovski’s marketing director Keith Gelman and a handful of
others surrounding him, just a fraction of the heavyweight’s
elevator-capacity entourage — whose movements appeared limited to a
15-foot radius around the striker — remained to revel in this
reality.
A sign of things to come?
“Everybody told me ‘oh, you’re the champion. You’re the best.’ So it’s not good for me,” Arlovski admitted. “I understand right now it was another of my mistakes. For everything I took a lesson, and for next time I will be smarter.”
If baseball is a game of inches, mixed martial arts is a game of flinches. And somehow the Pat Miletich (Pictures)-trained Sylvia found a way to make “The Pitbull” pause.
Unlike their first bout, when an evil overhand right put Sylvia down, Arlovski didn’t move on the 6-8 fighter’s long legs, even though he said he hoped to end the fight in similar fashion to the original.
Why did perhaps the most athletic heavyweight in mixed martial arts freeze?
He did not know.
“I was sure it was the same punch,” Arlovski told Sherdog.com, thinking the end was upon him. “Twenty seconds more and I stay the champion.”
Instead, the Windy City trained Arlovski said he was “surprised” when a resurrected Sylvia, born in Ellsworth, Maine, shook the cobwebs off and, using a quick turn of the shoulders, countered a lunging right hand lead with a perfect hook-uppercut to the jaw.
Being stopped by the hard-hitting Sylvia, who owned the UFC heavyweight title for seven months before testing positive for steroids in September 2003, was clearly not in the popular former champion’s game plan.
If it was: the end would have been one of the few things he did right during the fight.
Falling short in a strategy that called for a stiff jab, plenty of movement and the use of a noticeable edge in speed, Arlovski said he failed both his boxing and Brazilian jiu-jitsu trainers with Saturday’s performance.
Later in the day, while Arlovski continued rewinding and watching, Sylvia earned a warm reception after throwing out the first pitch of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ rubber match against the rival San Francisco Giants.
Wearing his new gold UFC belt over a new Dodger blue warm-up jersey, the champion cut loose a baseball with the same arm that chopped Arlovski in half.
Like Sylvia after referee Herb Dean (Pictures) signaled the end of the fight, the pitch was high.
Nearly impossible to miss in a crowd of 47,000-plus people, Sylvia had hundreds of people come up to him during the three-hour game and request autographs and photos. He loved every moment of it. That’s why winning the belt back meant so much too him.
If the reaction to Sylvia was any indication, a third fight between the champions would be welcomed. Both men have already embraced the rubber match.
“Right now I beat him once, he beat me [Saturday] so we’ll see who’s the true champion,” Arlovski promised. “Tim or I.”
Twenty-four hours ago, it didn’t seem like a realistic possibility worth pondering. Clearly, sitting here now, it’s obvious a lot can happen in 20 seconds.
