There is absolutely no shame in giving up in order to fight another day but it's something we don't see all that often nowadays in elite-level MMA.
In fact, there has been recent criticism of the fact that fighters are typically too tough for their own good and that corners should take more responsibility in saving their fighters when it becomes clear that there is no way back.
David Branch has been around the fight game a long time and he knew that he had nothing to gain by continuing to take damage from a suffocating position just to prove his resilience.
Branch made the right, but rare, call to tap out to strikes in the main event of UFC Pittsburgh on Saturday night as the former middleweight champion Luke Rockhold weathered an early storm and got back in the win column in style.
https://twitter.com/btsportufc/status/909348649519468549
Rockhold ate some solid shots from the former World Series of Fighting middleweight champion but he came back and put a beating on Branch in the second round.
"I just got caught in a position that I couldn’t escape," Branch said of his decision to tap. "I tried to take the punishment as much as I could, I got busted up a little bit and I decided to save the fight for another day and just come back stronger. I took as much punishment as I could. I didn’t just give up. Eventually it came, but I took a lot of knocks before that happened."
Rockhold's victory was his first since he claimed the UFC's 185lbs title in late 2015. He lost the belt in his very next outing as he fell to an upset courtesy of rival Michael Bisping, who remains champ.
https://twitter.com/bisping/status/909282575675359233
Bisping will defend his title for a second time when he welcomes pound-for-pound great Georges St-Pierre to middleweight in November but, if you ask Rockhold, GSP has no business in the division.
"Now I’m coming for that belt," Rockhold said in his post-fight interview. "GSP, I don’t know what I need to do; you want me to beat some sense into you? You don’t belong here. You’re gonna get crushed. Better back out; get out of this thing while you still can. This is my fight."
