FanPost

Are Brazilians really more likely to find excuses for their losses?

I am not the PC type of guy or the type that gets offended by everything, but I think people should at least back up the statement by facts. Are Brazilians really more likely to finds excuses for their losses?

Basically now just being a Brazilian is an argument for anything wrong (I am not Brazilian). The Aldo and now Machida situation highlight that.

Is the Aldo situation shady? A bit, but people's basic argument before anything was revealed was that Aldo was Brazilian and tested in Brazil. Out of the blue, Aldo is now a potential PED user.

More recently, Machida has come up and talked about a strike that looked illegal, but in the end was borderline legal. It didn't take two minutes to have an inflow of "Machida has caught the Brazilian excuse bug", when it wasn't even an excuse to his loss. Listen to the interview, people seem to hear what they want to hear.

Granted, there are plenty of Brazilian fighters who do find excuses for losing, which are ridiculous. But if people want to stereotype Brazilian fighters on finding excuses on losses, they should do the following first : compile top 10 fighters, their fights, and find out two things :

1) Are Brazilians whining more often than other fighters? In proportion of their weight vs the whole list of top 10 fighters

2) When fighters complain, are they more often Brazilians? In proportion of their weight vs the whole list of top 10 fighters

On top of that, define your "finding excuses", because it seems like when a guy like GSP says that he wasn't preparing enough against Serra, nobody blinks a freaking eye, yet if Barao says the same vs Dillashaw, it's a Brazilian excuse.

Brazilian fighters make up a significant portion of the top 10 of most divisions. It's pretty normal that if a fighter finds an excuse to losing, there is a significant chance he is Brazilian. The same thing goes for Americans.

But when Rampage talks about eye pokes or kick to the knees by Jon Jones, nobody talks about how another American is finding excuses for his losses. They consider the actual claim and decide to agree or disagree with him.

If you take the last title fights involving Brazilians losing, there are almost no excuses made. A non-exhaustive recent title fights :

Flyweights : none

Bantamweights : Barao talked about having a short-notice fight against Dillashaw, which is actually true. This could count as an excuse.

Featherweights : No recent Brazilian owning/fighting for that title and losing.

Lightweights : No recent Brazilian owning/fighting for that title and losing.

Welterweights : No recent Brazilian owning/fighting for that title and losing.

Middleweights : Silva actually went his out of his way to congratulate the champion. It was much more the fans making excuses for Silva. Unless you count him saying he "made basic mistakes" as an excuse.. or breaking his leg as an excuse..

Middleweights : Machida lost to Weidman, didn't say anything about it.

Middleweights : Vitor Belfort lost to Weidman, didn't say antyhing about it, his fans and haters had plenty of PED excuses ready to go.

Middleweights : Vitor Belfort lost to Silva, didn't say antyhing about it.

Middleweights : Maia lost to Silva, didn't say antyhing about it. Well he did, but it was related to Silva's attitude.

Middleweights : Leites lost to Silva, didn't say antyhing about it.

Light Heavyweights : Glover Teixeira lost and other people talked about the eye pokes. He went out of his way to talk about how it wouldn't have changed anything.

Light Heavyweights : Shogun lost to Jones, nothing was said.

Light Heavyweights : Vitor lost to Jones, nothing was said.

Heavyweights : I have no recollection of JDS ever finding excuses for losing to Cain. Twice.

That's 1 in 13. Again, do the top 10, maybe I will be wrong, maybe Brazilians do find excuses more than Americans. There are however lots of Americans doing the same but not being singled out as Americans finding excuses. Basically every freaking Nick/Nate Diaz losses counts as an excuse, Tim Kennedy, Hendricks, etc.

Just out of recent memory of title fights, I could point out that Pettis talked about how he couldn't see out of his eye vs Dos Anjos. If he was Brazilian, would that count as an excuse?