Al Turk to appeal loss, major test of legitimacy for Zuffa's commissions
by Zak Woods on Jun 15, 2009 8:00 PM EDT
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Fighter's Only is reporting that Mustapha Al Turk is appealing his loss to Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic. During the fight it appeared that Al Turk was poked in the eye, whether it was intentional or not is disputable.
Since the fight was in Germany there is no independent athletic commission to arbitrate the appeal. Indeed this is the case for all European UFC events. Zuffa has modeled their European athletic commissions after U.S. athletic commissions, which rely on the 'Unified Rules'.
MMA Payout breaks down how the appeal should work,
The standard operating procedure in this situation would have Zuffa as the arbiter of the appeal, in the initial stage, according to the Zuffa Standard Contract:
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The question to ask in this situation is "Is there a sufficient firewall between the person who is acting in the role of commissioner, and the Zuffa brass who are making the monetary/financial decisions?" I would assume in this situation that former head of NSAC Marc Ratner is serving in the Keith Kizer role, or at least he should be.
I highly suggest that anyone who is interested in how Zuffa's overseas operations work read the post.
This will be an interesting test of impartiality for Zuffa's European commissions. Since Filipovic left the organization to sign with Dream it stands to reason that a reversal of the fight, or a declaration of no contest, would be met with suspicion and cynicism, maybe even questioning the legitimacy of Zuffa's expansion. Thus it seems logical to expect the arbiters to rule against Al Turk just to avoid such a political dilemma.
For those who see Zuffa's overseas commission work as a farce, the promotion suspended Chris Leben for testing positive for steroids after UFC 89.
[Update: Note by Zak Woods, 06/15/09 10:27 PM EDT ]
MMA Weekly says no dice on the appeal,
Marc Ratner, UFC Vice President of Regulatory Affairs, Monday told MMAWeekly.com an appeal was not possible.
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"In any sport, a judgment call cannot be overturned," he continued. "It's one of those things that happens, but nobody saw it around the Octagon until the replay."
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Well, it looks like Zuffa moves fast with these rulings. Referee’s decision stands.
"In any sport, a judgment call cannot be overturned, it’s one of those things that happens, but nobody saw it around the Octagon until the replay."
Straight from the mouth of Marc Ratner, according to MMAWeekly.
thanks for the update was finally able to post it (previous comment from iphone :-p)
watchkalibrun.com
No problem, Zak. I also saw over on Cage Potato that the rule of thumb for Zuffa sanctioned events is to follow the NSAC rule book to a T. It makes sense since the NSAC didn’t overturn the Anthony Johnson/Kevin Burns eye poke result.
That Burns Johnson decision was horrible. I dont understand how they cant rule that a no contest.
watchkalibrun.com
Agreed, and this one wasn’t much better. That’s why I’m a firm believer in instant replay. I can’t think of, at least three fights where it would have been benificial. The two “eye-poke” fights and Marquardt-Lietes. It would’ve shown that the “elbow” wasn’t an illegal blow.
Ah, but would it have shown the illegal move that Nate wasn’t dinged for? And would the penalty for that foul be retroactively applied?
That’s the only argument against post-fight review that makes me question the good sense of it. It’s not just what you’re looking for in one instant; it’s what else you might find while doing so.
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