Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira explains how he ended up with a broken arm courtesy of Frank Mir at UFC 140

If you watched the UFC 140: "Jones vs. Machida" event that went down this past Dec. 10 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, you saw what was undoubtedly one of the most impressive (and nasty) submissions of your life.

Frank Mir, he who possesses a dangerous Brazilian jiu-jitsu game, snapped the arm of Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, an actual Brazilian thought to have an even more dangerous jiu-jitsu game. When I say snapped, I mean broken in half.

Check this picture out if you don't believe me. He just had surgery to repair the damage this past week.

How it happened, though, is the amazing part. Nogueira was handily winning the bout in the standing exchanges, using an underrated boxing game to take his opponent off guard and rock him to the point that he was maybe one solid punch away from ending the fight.

And then, inexplicably, "Minotauro" went for a guillotine. When a punch would have finished the job, the deadly grappler instead wanted a submission. That paved the way, of course, for Mir to regain his senses and make a furious comeback.

So the question on everyone's mind since that night is just what exactly Nogueira was thinking when he dropped for a submission instead of ending it with punches. His answer (via Tatame.com):

"Last Saturday I fought and lost via submission for the first time in my career, it was a bad feeling, but it's part of the sport. Everything that happens in a fight is quick and the fighter acts most based on his instincts and reflexes than on his mind. I knew I made a mistake as I tried to submit on a fight where I could have won by KO. But when Frank Mir was practically knocked out I heard the judge as me to stop punching him at the neck and that exactly when I tried to choke him. Mir put himself together and must be congratulated for submitting me. I checked the videos and I wasn't hitting him on the neck, but on Mir's side of the head, which is allowed. But I'm not here to apologize. I lost, I'll recover from my arm injury and then move on, probably on the second UFC Rio of 2012."

Ah, the old chuck-the-ref-under-the-bus defense. Tried and true.

This will surely be well received by Mir, who reveled in the destruction he caused shortly after winning the bout. In fact, he had said beforehand that he wanted to beat Nogueira even worse than he did the first time, when he won via technical knockout.

And that's exactly what he did.

The first time, though, "Big Nog" was suffering from staph infection, a point he made sure to make clear. Mir took it as an excuse, got pissed and broke his arm in the rematch. Now Nogueira is blaming the referee (in a roundabout way) for costing him this fight.

I'd sure hate to see what Mir would do to him in a third fight.

All that said, how do you Maniacs feel about the legendary Brazilian's excuse reasoning? Anyone buying it or was Mir just the better man?

For a refresher course on the fight be sure to check out the video highlights right here.