Referee!

Officiating is important in any sport. Just ask the Baltimore Orioles in the ’96 ALCS. A Yankee fan, named Jeff Maier, reached over the fence to pull a Derek Jeter fly ball into a home run and the umpires missed the call. In more recent memory the Seattle Seahawks claim a host of bad officiating in Superbowl XL. These two examples demonstrate just how important proper officiating can be. Saturday night gave us a glimpse into the mixed bag of officiating that exists right now in MMA.

Good officiating: Yves Lavinge refereeing C.B. Dollaway versus Jesse Taylor. Lavigne showed what excellent professionalism after C.B. illegally struck a downed opponent with a knee to the head. Yves Lavigne called for time, and then preceded to explain so the judges, fighters and the audience could all hear the warning. Lavigne was making sure that C.B. knew what would happen if he repeated the foul.

Bad officiating: Steve Mazzagati in charge of Anthony Johnson versus Kevin Burns. The entire fight Johnson was complaining of being poked in the eye. Mazzagati saw the complaints but not the crime, however he should have been aware something was afoul especially in the third round when Johnson complained twice to being poked. The little mistakes built up into a significant mistake when Kevin Burns buried his finger into Johnson’s eye socket. As Anthony flew back from the pain Mazzagati wasn’t sure what occurred and assumed it was from a punch. The ruling was an unjust TKO victory for Kevin Burns.

Exhibit C: Mario Yamasaki. Mario has gotten into the bad habit of letting fights go to long once they are clearly over. It happened again with Jake O’Brien and Cain Velasquez. Once Cain achieved the crucifix mount and begun burying haymakers into a defenseless O’Brien the fight should have been stopped. But no Mario let it continue. I physically got up and left the room and came back to see the pounding continue. Eventually Yamasaki ended the fight but it seemed quite similar to his poor stoppage in the ‘Ninja’ Rua, Robbie Lawler fight.

While only one of the outcomes was altered due to poor officiating these examples still highlight the importance of proper refereeing for exciting, fair and most importantly safe fights.