Do the Right Thing: Change Bobby Lashley vs. Chad Griggs to a No Contest

Bobby Lashley has officially sampled the bitter taste of defeat for the first time during his professional mixed martial arts career.

Lashley was beaten by the relatively unknown Chad Griggs. Griggs won by TKO at the end of the second round.

The fight was extremely controversial, due to what many would consider two very poor officiating calls.

Lashley, a three-time national amateur wrestling champion, was controlling the fight with takedowns and riding Briggs out from on top. Fairly typical of an MMA fighter who prides himself on a wrestling-based attack.

However, Griggs managed to catch Lashley with some pretty stiff uppercuts on a half-hearted takedown attempt. This opened up a pretty bad cut over Lashley’s left eye.

Nevertheless, Lashley hung in there and remained competitive, eventually getting Griggs down again and gaining a clear upper hand as he maneuvered himself into a full mount position.

At this point, referee Jon Schorle decided that the cut above Lashely’s eye was severe enough that he needed to be cleaned up by his corner and looked at by the ringside doctor.

While there is really nothing wrong with this decision, the inexplicable part came when Schorle decided to restart the fight from a standing position, instead of letting Lashley resume full mount.          

Anyone who has a logical thought process for why this call made sense, it would certainly be appreciated.

At this stage of the game, there were about 33 seconds remaining in the second round. 

Lashley then shot a very sloppy takedown, and while he managed to grasp Griggs' leg for a single leg takedown, he really did not try to finish the move and ended up on the receiving end of some vicious hammer fists.

The issue here though is that Lashley was clearly getting blasted in the back of the head on many of these punches. Schorle did not even give Griggs as much as a warning over these blatantly illegal strikes. 

From here the round ended, and Lashley was very slow to get to his feet after the round. This caused Schorle to call the fight. 

Now, to put everything into perspective, Lashley came into this fight extremely overrated, while Griggs was extremely underrated. 

Griggs came into the fight with a professional record of 8-1, with seven of those wins coming via knockout. His ability to put, and keep, opponents down earned him the nickname “The Grave Digger.”

Lashley is a fighter who has gotten by at this point largely on his name alone. Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker has given Lashley the easiest fights possible up to this point, in hopes to build up an already known guy as a star for the brand.

In the hype leading up to Strikeforce: Houston, Griggs' name was hardly even mentioned. Lashley was all but guaranteed to win; he was a five to one favorite for the fight Saturday night.

The bottom line is that Griggs opened up a lot of eyes and was impressive in his Strikeforce debut, while Lashley failed to come close to the hype and was a major disappointment.

It would be one thing if the big man caught with a submission, or lost by decision to a more skilled and experienced opponent, but he lost this one because he showed up out of condition. 

This begs one question: How seriously Lashley is actually taking his MMA training? Bear in mind this is the same guy who called out Fedor Emelianenko just a few weeks ago. 

With all this being said though, Lashley should honestly appeal the decision of this fight. While he was the inferior opponent on this occasion, it certainly would have been feasible for him to finish off Griggs from full mount. 

Full mount is arguably the most advantageous position in MMA, and a guy with Lashley’s size and strength could certainly find at least one move to use from there.

Still, this argument is more hypothetical than factual. Maybe Griggs would have just thrown Lashley off of him and stood up. It is all speculation. 

What is not hypothetical though is that Lashley was hit with illegal strikes; therefore, his opponent should have been disqualified. 

This was a horribly blown call that really should not be overlooked. Griggs absolutely deserves another high profile fight, and a ton of credit following his most recent outing. 

Meanwhile, Lashley had a serious reality check about what it takes to hang with seasoned practitioners of MMA.

Although his stock has dropped tremendously and taken his name out of any high profile fights for a while, he does not deserve a loss for this one.

Lashley was a victim of extremely poor officiating, so the right move here is to get this one changed to a no contest.