The co-main event bout between Gegard Mousasi and Chris Weidman (full highlights here) at last night’s (April 8, 2017) UFC 210 from the KeyBank Center in Buffalo, New York, began as the exciting, back-and-forth bout many thought it would be when it was signed. Unfortunately it then developed into a controversy-filled talking point when referee Dan
The co-main event bout between Gegard Mousasi and Chris Weidman (full highlights here) at last night’s (April 8, 2017) UFC 210 from the KeyBank Center in Buffalo, New York, began as the exciting, back-and-forth bout many thought it would be when it was signed.
Unfortunately it then developed into a controversy-filled talking point when referee Dan Miragliotta called a second-round knee from Mousasi illegal that was ultimately determined to be a legal strike during the five-minute recovery period Weidman was granted. The former champion failed to identify the current month of April correctly, prompting cageside doctors to stop the fight with a TKO win for Mousasi as the result.
But the discussion remains a difficult one as Weidman correctly pointed out that instant replay is not a legal means of changing a call in MMA in the state of New York, where the sport was just legalized last year and whose MMA-inexperienced athletic commission has already made a slew of surprising and debatable decisions in fights.
After his third straight loss, Weidman immediately revealed he would be appealing the loss and wants a rematch with “The Dreamcatcher.” Free agent Mousasi wasn’t as supportive of that notion, however, instead saying he wants a new contract and a title shot instead of a rematch.
What do you think? Should Mousasi give Weidman a rematch to clear up the strange ending to last night’s bout?
“Time, Time.”
There was nothing ambiguous about referee Dan Miragliotta’s booming instruction to Gegard Mousasi and Chris Weidman with 1:47 remaining in the second round of their middleweight co-main event at UFC 210.
It was the last truly coheren…
“Time, Time.”
There was nothing ambiguous about referee Dan Miragliotta‘s booming instruction to GegardMousasi and Chris Weidman with 1:47 remaining in the second round of their middleweight co-main event at UFC 210.
It was the last truly coherent moment of the fight.
Miragliotta believed he had seen an illegal knee from Mousasi and stopped the fight accordingly. The New Yorker looked to be in no condition to continue what had, to that point, been a compelling matchup between two of the top fighters in the division.
Miragliotta brought the ringside doctor in to check on Weidman and started the clock counting down the five minutes the injured fighter had to recover.
And then chaos ensued.
Miragliotta, in violation of New York State Athletic Commission rules that do not allow for use of instant replay, can clearly be heard asking ringside official “Big” John McCarthy to “look at the replay for me.” Apparently unaware of the rules in New York, McCarthy informed Miragliotta that the knees, initially thought to be illegal, were completely proper when viewed in super-slow motion.
“I thought I was going to win because of the illegal knee,” Weidman said at the post-fight press conference. “Then they looked at a replay…and see the legal knee, but in the state of New York, you’re not allowed to look, there’s no replays. It’s a crappy situation.”
After what felt like an endless delay, with UFC announcers and vice president of regulatory affairs Marc Ratner offering conflicting interpretations of the rules and arguing about what should happen next, Miragliotta talked with an unidentified female official outside the cage and came back in to wave the fight off.
Mousasi, originally thought to be the perpetrator, was given the win. Weidman, who may have exaggerated his injuries in the immediate aftermath thinking he was on his way to a disqualification win, suddenly found himself on a three-fight losing streak.
“When you make a decision, you can’t go back and change it,” an exasperated UFC on Fox analyst Kenny Florian said after the fight on Fox Sports 1. “The ref said it was an illegal knee, then someone told the ref that it was legal and Weidman can’t continue. You can’t make a decision in the Octagon and then change it. Both these guys lose. It was very confusing.”
At popular MMA blog Bloody Elbow, Tim Burke was as flabbergasted as everyone else:
So what do you do then? Weidman could have continued after all the time it took to figure it out, but it was a legal knee so it should have never been stopped in the first place. Mousasi got the win, which you could argue he probably would have got anyway because the knee destroyed Weidman. But that was so weird. The New York commission is concerned with fighter safety, and that’s fine, but them and Miragliotta made a mockery of a fight that Weidman was clearly winning up until then.
The rule in question, liberalizing the use of knees to the head in certain circumstances, is a new addition to the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts for 2017 and hasn’t yet been approved in all jurisdictions. Perhaps because Miragliotta and McCarthy spend their lives traveling from state to state and officiating bouts under a number of different rulesets, they were unclear on how to proceed.
One thing is clear in practice—it’s a rule that is nearly impossible to enforce during the tumult of a typical MMA bout. Even with the benefit of replay, UFC color commentators Joe Rogan and Dominick Cruz had to see the sequence four times before they could agree it was legal.
“It’s certainly a lot to ask of the referee,” play-play announcer Jon Anik said, “to make that fine distinction in real time.”
The controversial finish was just one of many issues New York faced in what must have been a long week for regulators, who did not respond to interview requests.
What happens next is anyone’s guess. Weidman indicated he was considering an appeal of the commission’s rulin,g and there was much discussion of an immediate rematch. But, after the fight, UFC President Dana White confirmed that it was Mousasi‘s last bout under contract with the promotion.
Mousasi, in a scathing pre-fight interview, told Fox Sports’ Damon Martin that he was unhappy with his current compensation.
“I just see that VitorBelfort is making tons more money than me,” Mousasi said. “I defeated Dan Henderson, he’s making tons more money than me. I defeated Mark Hunt. He’s making $800,000 a fight. I can beat Michael Bisping and even before he was champion he was making a lot more than me. Why don’t I deserve to make some money?”
With the victory, Mousasi becomes the first free agent of the Scott Coker era at Bellator who you could reasonably make a case for the being the best fighter in his division. He has a history with UFC’s thriving rival from his days in Strikeforce and will likely court a big offer from a promotion in desperate need of marquee talent.
A man of few words and even fewer facial expressions, Mousasi had little to say after the bout.
“He can have the rematch, no problem,” the Dutch fighter said in the cage. “I was ready to continue the fight.”
While his speech did little to excite, the fight ended with a bloodied Weidman looking dazed and confused on the mat. That was a strong enough statement for Mousasi as he immediately becomes the most intriguing fighter on the market.
Jonathan Snowden is a Senior Writer who covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.
An incredibly controversial result unfortunately marred what was otherwise a great contest between two former champions when Gegard Mousasi met Chris Weidman in the co-main event of last night’s (April 8, 2017) UFC 210 from the KeyBank Center in Buffalo, New York. The first frame featured some effective takedowns from Weidman, who controlled much of the
An incredibly controversial result unfortunately marred what was otherwise a great contest between two former champions when Gegard Mousasi met Chris Weidman in the co-main event of last night’s (April 8, 2017) UFC 210 from the KeyBank Center in Buffalo, New York.
The first frame featured some effective takedowns from Weidman, who controlled much of the action but looked to expend a ton of energy, while Mousasi worked his laserlike jab in a losing frame. The second round was much different, as Mousasi landed a huge flurry of pinpoint punches that had Weidman on his heels. To his credit, Weidman did get some advantageous positions on the ground, even taking Mousasi’s back at one point.
But Mousasi got back to his feet to land some big knees on Weidman, the second of which lead referee Dan Miragliotta to give Weidman a five-minute break due to an illegal strike on a downed opponent. During the break, however, a replay was somehow used (which is illegal for MMA bouts in New York) to determine the strike actually wasn’t on a downed fighter, prompting cageside doctors to stop the action in favor of Mousasi by TKO.
Gegard Mousasi picked up a second-round TKO win over Chris Weidman in the co-main event of last night’s (April 8, 2017) UFC 210 from the KeyBank Center in Buffalo, New York, but it wasn’t an extremely large amount of controversy. The fight was stopped in the second after Mousasi hit Weidman with a knee that referee
The fight was stopped in the second after Mousasi hit Weidman with a knee that referee Dan Miragliotta dubbed illegal, giving Weidman five minutes to potentially recover. But when the strike was reviewed on cageside video by the fledgling New York State Athletic Commission (NYSAC), it was deemed legal and the fight was then called off as a win for Mousasi.
“The Dreamcatcher” may have finished Weidman after the big knee, but the outcome remained uncertain at that time nonetheless, and a referee giving a fighter time to recover shouldn’t lead to a clear win from the opponent without any resolution.
After the bout, Weidman spoke up to FOX Sports to voice his frustration at the head-scratching result:
The former champion, who is currently on the worst streak of his MMA career with three straight losses (albeit to top 5-ranked competition) said he wants a rematch with Mousasi and will also appeal the ruling:
“Oh, immediate rematch and appeal. You know, I wanna get three round with him fair and square. And I wanna finish him. I felt great. And what happened just sucks for everybody, I just feel bad for everybody who was watching at home and out here. And obviously for me, it was not the way I wanted this thing to turn out, so it’s going to be a tough pill to swallow, but I want the right thing to happen.”
Weidman elaborated further on the details of his puzzling loss, noting that while the replay may have showed his hand was not down during the knee, the referee had already ruled that it was, and therefore it was not legal to sue the replay to determine the outcome of the fight and switch a decision the official had already made:
“It’s such a messy thing. First of all, they just changed that rule, first of all it was like one hand, then it was two hands, and then they stopped the fight because, I thought my hand was down but apparently in the replay it wasn’t. But the ref thought it was. You can’t go back on that by looking at a replay during a fight. That’s not legal.”
Rightly or otherwise, there is an air of illegitimacy hanging over the UFC light heavyweight division.
Jon Jones might be the best MMA fighter ever. Until he returns to action—his current suspension ends in July—the belt feels a little, wel…
Rightly or otherwise, there is an air of illegitimacy hanging over the UFC light heavyweight division.
Jon Jones might be the best MMA fighter ever. Until he returns to action—his current suspension ends in July—the belt feels a little, well, interim-y.
That may not sound fair to Daniel Cormier, the undisputed champion of the division (though he lost when he faced Jones in 2015. It’s certainly not fair to the main event of UFC 210, in which Cormier defended said title in a rematch with power-striking terror Anthony Johnson on Saturday.
The wrestling of Cormier and the furious, short-fused knockouts of Johnson provided a compelling stylistic contrast, whether Jones loomed over it or not. (He will, one can assume, almost surely face the winner next.)
Still, most of the fight-week intrigue was drummed up by the New York State Athletic Commission. That’s not ideal. More on that momentarily.
Back in the cage, the co-main event featured ex-champ Chris Weidman and the streaking Gegard Mousasi battling to gain headway at the crowded top of the middleweight division.
As always, there was intrigue up and down this card, and the final stat lines only reveal so much. These are the real winners and losers from UFC 210, which went down in Buffalo, New York.
Full card results appear at the end of the article.
Tonight’s (April 8, 2017) anticipated UFC 210 is in the books from the KeyBank Center in Buffalo, New York, and now the MMA world will begin to digest the aftermath of the impactful pay-per-view card. Light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier met streaking knockout artist Anthony “Rumble” Johnson in the main event. Despite a broken nose from
Tonight’s (April 8, 2017) anticipated UFC 210 is in the books from the KeyBank Center in Buffalo, New York, and now the MMA world will begin to digest the aftermath of the impactful pay-per-view card.
Light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier met streaking knockout artist Anthony “Rumble” Johnson in the main event. Despite a broken nose from a huge first-round head kick, Cormier weathered the storm to run through “Rumble” once again with some brutal ground and pound and the familiar rear-naked choke finish. After the fight, Johnson shockingly retired.
Former middleweight champ Chris Weidman met veteran Gegard Mousasi in the co-main event. After two exciting back-and-forth first two rounds, the fight unfortunately came to a heavily controversial finish when Dan Miragliotta stopped the fight to give Weidman a break after an illegal knee was deemed to be legal.
It’s sure to be an interesting following moments to the wild card.
Watch the post-fight presser live starting shortly after the main card right here:
“Time, Time.”