Tag: corruption

Ross Pearson’s Teammate Confirms That the New Mexico Athletic Commission is Likely Corrupt as Sh*t [UPDATED]


(“Diego, chu need to stop worrying, meng. Drug tests? We don’t need no stinking drug tests. Viva Mexico!!” Photo via Sherdog.)

Update: Greg Jackson claims that Rustam Khabilov and Diego Sanchez were indeed drug tested for their fights.

You really have to feel for Ross Pearson right about now. For three straight rounds in the Fight Night 42 co-main event last weekend, the TUF 9 winner outstruck, outscored, and plain outworked fellow TUF winner Diego Sanchez, only to watch a clear cut decision victory inexplicably granted to his opponent. “The Real Deal” was not only robbed of his realness, the biggest win of his career, and the bonus money that typically follows, but has since appealed the decision in a move that stands absolutely zero chance of changing anything.

That the egregious decision happened to occur in Albuquerque, New Mexico — the home of both Sanchez and the infamous Jackson’s Gym at which he trains — only fueled the cries of corruption aimed at the New Mexico Athletic Commission following the verdict. And now, one of Pearson’s training partners, Dean Amasinger, has come forward with some equally sketchy information that kinda-sorta indicts the NMAC as the corrupt sonsabitches that we made them out to be (via MMAJunkie):

Ross was drug tested before the fight, which is perfectly normal. That’s absolutely fine, and all this stuff is supposed to be random. But when Ross came back from the drug test, he said to me, ‘I’ve seen the list; none of the Jackson guys are on the drug test list, or the New Mexican guys who are fighting on the card.’ And so I went and checked and that was the case.

With [Sanchez] being from New Mexico and specifically Albuquerque, there’s obvious connections there and obvious potential conflicts of interest. They don’t have a lot of experience with bigger shows, and I think that’s another factor that’s played into this happening.

Crooked commissions you say? THIS THING GOES ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP! (*puts on Serpico costume, brushes beard poetically*)


(“Diego, chu need to stop worrying, meng. Drug tests? We don’t need no stinking drug tests. Viva Mexico!!” Photo via Sherdog.)

Update: Greg Jackson claims that Rustam Khabilov and Diego Sanchez were indeed drug tested for their fights.

You really have to feel for Ross Pearson right about now. For three straight rounds in the Fight Night 42 co-main event last weekend, the TUF 9 winner outstruck, outscored, and plain outworked fellow TUF winner Diego Sanchez, only to watch a clear cut decision victory inexplicably granted to his opponent. “The Real Deal” was not only robbed of his realness, the biggest win of his career, and the bonus money that typically follows, but has since appealed the decision in a move that stands absolutely zero chance of changing anything.

That the egregious decision happened to occur in Albuquerque, New Mexico — the home of both Sanchez and the infamous Jackson’s Gym at which he trains — only fueled the cries of corruption aimed at the New Mexico Athletic Commission following the verdict. And now, one of Pearson’s training partners, Dean Amasinger, has come forward with some equally sketchy information that kinda-sorta indicts the NMAC as the corrupt sonsabitches that we made them out to be (via MMAJunkie):

Ross was drug tested before the fight, which is perfectly normal. That’s absolutely fine, and all this stuff is supposed to be random. But when Ross came back from the drug test, he said to me, ‘I’ve seen the list; none of the Jackson guys are on the drug test list, or the New Mexican guys who are fighting on the card.’ And so I went and checked and that was the case.

With [Sanchez] being from New Mexico and specifically Albuquerque, there’s obvious connections there and obvious potential conflicts of interest. They don’t have a lot of experience with bigger shows, and I think that’s another factor that’s played into this happening.

Crooked commissions you say? THIS THING GOES ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP! (*puts on Serpico costume, brushes beard poetically*)

Further confounding things is the fact that, less than two months ago, Dana White unveiled a new, more complete drug testing policy to media members. Where drug tests were handed out on an individual, random basis to several (but not all) fighters competing on a card in the past, White vowed to test every fighter on a card to help weed out recent criticism:

We’re testing the whole card now. The whole card is getting tested. Everyone is getting tested.

If you can make sure you take a hard enough stance and you can keep these young, talented kids off these drugs, their careers are going to last longer. Once all the kids realize there is a level playing field, you have these guys paranoid, ‘I know this guy is using, I know he is, I have to fight this guy and he’s on it, so maybe I should do it too’ once we can eliminate all that it’s going to make the sport a lot better for everybody, them and us.

UFC and NMAC officials have yet to respond to these rather bold allegations being thrown at them, but for now, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that the drug tests of all of the Jackson-trained fighters were simply lost in the mail. Or that Pearson simply misread the list of fighters tested prior to Fight Night 42. Yeah, misread…

…I’m sorry. Our sport is either Cecil Peoples-incompetent one day or Don King-corrupt the next, and willful ignorance has become my only defense mechanism. We will have more on this story as it develops.

–J. Jones

Man, Isn’t Boxing Corrupt? Anyway, The Judge Who Scored UFC on FOX 7 Main Event for Melendez Runs a Cesar Gracie Affiliate School


(Vierra is standing third from the right in the black gi, next to Cesar Gracie. / Photo via MixedMartialArts.com)

Following the conclusion of UFC on FOX 7 on Saturday, many die-hard fight fans switched their dials to Showtime to watch the WBA light-middleweight title fight between rising boxing star Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez and Austin Trout. Though Trout arguably won a majority of the early rounds, the fight’s “open-scoring” system revealed that the judges were in the bag for Alvarez from the beginning. When the match was over, the scores came back unanimously for the 22-year-old ginger: 115-112, 116-111 and a completely batshit 118-109 from judge Stanley Christodoulou. As usual, we MMA types used the opportunity to take potshots at boxing’s endemic corruption.

Alright, so get a load of this shit: Late Saturday night, Ben Henderson’s brother pointed out that Wade Vierra — the dissenting judge in Henderson’s split-decision win over Gilbert Melendez — is a “Master Instructor” for the GracieFighter network, and runs a Cesar Gracie affiliate school in Roseville, California. Considering that Melendez is a well-known Cesar Gracie product, the conflict-of-interest alarms should have been ringing for the California State Athletic Commission, and Vierra shouldn’t have been allowed to judge the fight. But the CSAC didn’t catch it, or didn’t care, or hey, maybe they were in on it. Either way, Bendo’s special night was put in jeopardy.

When judging controversies happen in MMA, fans usually chalk it up to ignorance rather than corruption. But when ignorance from MMA judges and commissions is allowed to exist indefinitely, that is corruption — it’s a corruption of the sport’s legitimacy, even if nobody’s directly profiting from it. Obviously, the UFC lightweight title fight was so close that Vierra’s 48-47 tally for Melendez was much more defensible than Christodoulou’s 118-109 for Canelo. Still, the incident gave the UFC event an appearance of commission malfeasance that reflects very poorly on the promotion and the sport in general. (Was somebody paid off to allow Vierra a spot on the judges’ table? Or is the CSAC just that inept?)

It’s a good thing Henderson won. Otherwise, we might have had a scandal on our hands.


(Vierra is standing third from the right in the black gi, next to Cesar Gracie. / Photo via MixedMartialArts.com)

Following the conclusion of UFC on FOX 7 on Saturday, many die-hard fight fans switched their dials to Showtime to watch the WBA light-middleweight title fight between rising boxing star Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez and Austin Trout. Though Trout arguably won a majority of the early rounds, the fight’s “open-scoring” system revealed that the judges were in the bag for Alvarez from the beginning. When the match was over, the scores came back unanimously for the 22-year-old ginger: 115-112, 116-111 and a completely batshit 118-109 from judge Stanley Christodoulou. As usual, we MMA types used the opportunity to take potshots at boxing’s endemic corruption.

Alright, so get a load of this shit: Late Saturday night, Ben Henderson’s brother pointed out that Wade Vierra — the dissenting judge in Henderson’s split-decision win over Gilbert Melendez — is a “Master Instructor” for the GracieFighter network, and runs a Cesar Gracie affiliate school in Roseville, California. Considering that Melendez is a well-known Cesar Gracie product, the conflict-of-interest alarms should have been ringing for the California State Athletic Commission, and Vierra shouldn’t have been allowed to judge the fight. But the CSAC didn’t catch it, or didn’t care, or hey, maybe they were in on it. Either way, Bendo’s special night was put in jeopardy.

When judging controversies happen in MMA, fans usually chalk it up to ignorance rather than corruption. But when ignorance from MMA judges and commissions is allowed to exist indefinitely, that is corruption — it’s a corruption of the sport’s legitimacy, even if nobody’s directly profiting from it. Obviously, the UFC lightweight title fight was so close that Vierra’s 48-47 tally for Melendez was much more defensible than Christodoulou’s 118-109 for Canelo. Still, the incident gave the UFC event an appearance of commission malfeasance that reflects very poorly on the promotion and the sport in general. (Was somebody paid off to allow Vierra a spot on the judges’ table? Or is the CSAC just that inept?)

It’s a good thing Henderson won. Otherwise, we might have had a scandal on our hands.