UFC president Dana White has gone on this week’s edition of Inside MMA to make the case for instant replay in MMA.
Talking to hosts Kenny Rice and Bas Rutten on Monday night, White said that, “every other sport has instant replay, fighting needs it too, especially with how bad the officiating has been—judges and reffing.”
He said that it was “insane” that the athletics commission refuse to review a referee’s decision made in the heat of a fight.
“In football if you make a mistake, guys are gonna make mistakes, you can’t be in all the angles, you can’t see everything. In this sport which is so young, there are a lot of people that are not qualified to judge and ref this sport, that are judging and reffing it. Instant replay makes sense and instant replay would be awesome because the thing that people do understand and some don’t, once you make a decision and it’s a bad call, you affect this guy’s life forever. It’s a career changer.”
White said that while in some sports, such as baseball, a bad decision doesn’t have as big of an effect because the teams play so many games in the season. But, if “you make a mistake in fighting, it hurts the guy immensely, it hurts,” said White
Controversial judging and referee calls have dogged the world of MMA, and this year has been no different. In July, White lambasted the state of refereeing at UFC 149 which he said left him “embarrassed.”
He was especially critical of ref Josh Rosenthal, who stepped in during a match between Matt Riddle and Chris Clements, believing Riddle’s liver-kick was a groin shot.
“It’s a kick to the body, and Rosenthal jumps in the middle because he thought it was a kick to the groin,” White said. “Come on man, you’re standing right there. Open your eyes. Pay attention, this is what you’re getting paid to do. You choose to do this. If you don’t want to do it 100 percent, don’t do it. Go do something else.”
Speaking on Inside MMA, White said officiating needs to get better.
“I mean if it doesn’t everybody’s in trouble. You know I consistently, when bad calls are made, I call people out and we’re doing everything we can to try and stop this from happening. I think it’s one of the worst things that can happen if a guy loses a fight that didn’t really lose that fight… You know how hard these guys work, how hard they train, how much they put in, and it affects their money, their legacy, it affects everything. I mean Jon Jones has one loss on his record that isn’t right. That wasn’t a loss. He should be undefeated right now. We should be able to go out and promote Jon Jones as the undisputed, undefeated light heavyweight champion, but we can’t cos there was a guy reffing a fight that didn’t belong there.”
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