5 UFC fighters who held onto submissions for way too long

#4 George Sotiropoulos

Poor refereeing forced George Sotiropoulos to hold onto a kimura for far too long

Renowned as one of MMA’s “nice guys”, George Sotiropoulos never intended to hurt Joe Lauzon at UFC 123 when he locked in a second round kimura to force ‘J-Lau’ to tap out, but through no fault of his own, he was almost forced to do it anyway. In this instance, the submission wasn’t held too long through malice, but through the incompetence of a referee.

After a back-and-forth first round, Sotiropoulos was able to gain a dominant position on Lauzon, and utilising his Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt, the Australian fighter locked up a kimura onto the left arm of ‘J-Lau’. Lauzon tapped out almost immediately – but inexperienced referee Marc Fennel was way out of position and missed the tap.

The result of this gaffe was that Sotiropoulos had to continue to crank the arm, clearly concerned that if he released his opponent, the referee might let the fight continue. Fennel finally spotted the submission a moment later and stepped in to stop the fight, but both Sotiropoulos and Lauzon were furious with him, berating the official for his poor positioning.

Thankfully, Lauzon was not badly injured by the hold, but this was a lesson learned for every prospective MMA referee; you have to be in position and be ready to step in at any time, otherwise someone could get seriously hurt.