If Chael Sonnen is planning on appealing his loss to Anderson Silva, it doesn’t appear as though he will have a very strong leg to stand on.
According to multiple reports, Sonnen’s coach Scott McQuarry is pushing to appeal Sonnen’s UFC 148 loss to the Nevada State Athletic because he believes Silva intended to knee Sonnen illegally while he was on the mat.
However, NSAC executive director Keith Kizer told MMAFighting.com on Monday that he has yet to receive any formal complaint from Sonnen’s camp regarding the knee. He added that Sonnen has “very limited” grounds for appeal.
Kizer stated that there are four grounds for appeal in Nevada:
1) Failed drug test.
2) Miscalculation of a scorecard.
3) Collusion (official paid off).
4) Referee misinterprets a rule (for example: allows soccer kick when soccer is illegal).
As Kizer noted, this situation doesn’t fall under those categories, so he didn’t appear confident that Sonnen would be able to get the result overturned.
Meanwhile, Kizer said that he spoke to both Sonnen and Silva about Silva’s shoulder strike at Friday’s weigh-ins following Saturday night’s title fight. Kizer, who stated he was “very unhappy with Anderson” due to his actions, said that Sonnen told him and NSAC chairman Skip Avansino following the fight that he didn’t believe Silva should be fined for the strike, and, after talking to Silva, Kizer said the commission took Sonnen’s recommendation to heart and decided against fining Silva.
“Chael willing to forgive Anderson went a long way with me and the chairman,” he said. “He was very honorable, perhaps more than he needed to be, towards Anderson.”
Kizer said that both he and the chairman issued stern warnings to Silva about his behavior during fight week.
“I told him if you ever do anything like that again you will not be invited to fight in Nevada again,” Kizer said.
As for Silva rubbing Vaseline off his face and onto his body before the fight, Kizer said he noticed Silva has done that in the past but admitted this time it was “more blatant that we expected.” He said UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta pointed it out to him before the fight and referee Yves Lavigne was quick to wipe off the middleweight champion before round one.
Kizer was so disappointed in Silva’s actions overall that he added that, “if the next few Anderson Silva fights don’t happen in Nevada, it won’t bother me in the least.”