Denna helg vid UFC Vegas 38 var en av de mest efterlängtade matcher den mellan Kevin Holland och Kyle Daukaus i den delade huvudmatchen. Tråkigt nog för fansen gav inte matchen ett tillfredsställande resultat efter att herrarna skallat ihop i den första ronden vilket ledde till no-contest.
John McCarthy anser att domaren borde brutit direkt vid skallningen
Skallningen skakade Kevin Holland till den grad att han föll till marken. Han slutade dock inte fightas när Daukaus följde upp med ground-and-pound. Därefter fick Daukaus in en rear-naked-choke på Holland som till slut valde att klappa ut. Efter att matchen avslutats bekräftade dock reprisen att Holland skakats av en olovlig skallning och domaren Dan Miragliotta tog då ifrån Daukaus segern. Domslutet var inte populärt bland många fans och till och med Holland sade efteråt att Daukaus förtjänade segern. En av de mest respekterade domarna säger dock att vi fick det rätta resultatet.
’Big’ John McCarthy är kanske den mest kända domaren någonsin som började sin karriär redan vid UFC 2 och han hjälpte till och med att skriva regelboken för MMA. I sin podcast Weighing In pratade han om resultaten och han inledde med att säga att Miragliotta inte tog rätt beslut vid skallningen då han lät Holland fortsätta:
The real telling part was, you don’t know what the referee sees,. So I’m looking at it and I’m like, that one you should have seen. Based upon where you were at, the position he was at, and the way that Kevin fell when they came apart. He went face first, he was out. When he hit the ground, he woke up. It was like getting punched. He got hit on the jaw, it wasn’t like it was his forehead or anything like that, and it snapped his head. He was not in any way prepared for that and it put him out. But the telling part was when Dan said, ‘I saw it but I rushed in there and then he started fighting.’ This is where all, all, MMA referees make mistakes.
McCarthy menar att Miragliotta omedelbart borde brutit då han såg att Holland påverkades av skallningen som Miragliotta sagt sig uppfatta omedelbart:
This is not, ‘Oh, he’s fighting, let it go.’ You don’t do that because if you see the headbutt – many times you’ll see a head clash and neither guy responds to it at all. So instead of stopping the action, if there’s no cut, no damage you can see, you just come close to them and say, ‘Watch your heads inside,’ or something to that effect because you can see it did not effect either fighter. But if you have anything that shows a guy had an effect – and a guy getting knocked down, if you say, ‘I saw that was a clash of heads’ and you see a guy getting knocked down – it’s time to go stop time, no matter that he comes back out of it. I’m gonna get him up, I’m gonna take him over to the corner and let him clear out the cobwebs if there is that there, and then I’m gonna have the doctor look at him and if the doctor says he’s okay, we’ll put him back into the fight.
You’ve got to take that time. The thing is, the referee doesn’t want to interfere with the action of the fight, but you have to interfere with the action of the fight if you can see that it visibly caused damage to one fighter or to both fighters. You’ve got to give them time.
Matchen slutade på rätt sätt
Mycket av kontroversen gällande domslutet var hur resultat kom att fastställas. No-Contest kom endast att utdömas efter att en repris till slut visat att kollisionen var olovlig men eftersom Holland tillåtits fortsätta ansåg många att även om något otillåtet bäddat för avslutet så borde Daukaus fått segern för sin submission.
McCarthy menar dock att reprisen är till för just detta – att ändra och fastställa ett slutgiltigt resultat, och även om Miragliotta inte skötte saker perfekt vid skallningen så slutade ändå matchen med korrekt resultat:
Now in the state of California, we can go and look at that instant replay and reverse it. Same as now with what Nevada has implemented with their ringside official being the replay official. They handled this, and it’s okay if it takes more than one person to come up with the idea of, ‘This is the direction we need to go,’ as long as that direction is the right direction for the fighters. So I’m very happy that they have Herb being that replay official. I’m happy that you saw Jeff Mullins, who is in charge of the fight for the state of Nevada, he was definitely a part of it and talking to them, you saw other officials coming in and giving information about what they saw, which in the end forced or made, because we kind of thought that Dan was gonna go with, ‘Nope, I’m gonna leave it the way it is,’ but all of that input told him, ‘No, I need to make this a no-contest,’ and that was the right call for what occurred in this fight.”
Kevin Holland förtjänade inte att förlora matchen
McCarthy anser att Holland inte förtjänade att förlora matchen:
Kevin Holland did not deserve to lose the fight based upon being hurt by a clash of heads. That’s not within the legality of the sport and so he shouldn’t lose based upon the injury that he suffered and the damage that he suffered from that which put him in a situation where the choke made him tap later on. So in the end, the right thing was done and that’s good for the sport of MMA…
I thought overall, great job by the state of Nevada and the athletic commission in allowing all those people to come together and to talk about what’s the best thing, not only for the fighters but for the sport.
