Issue 029

September 2007

By Grant Waterman

At just about every sporting event you watch where a human referee is involved, you see some sort of controversy. It’s just a fact, you can’t please all the people all of the time. Many decisions made by referees are based on their opinion, for example, in a certain referee’s opinion a fighter isn’t able to continue, where as in another referees opinion that fighter may have been able to take a few more shots before being stopped.

A fair number of people who will be reading this magazine will without doubt have disagreed with at least one decision an MMA referee has made at some time. I have had numerous fans come up to me at events and question decisions I have made in the past, or who want to talk about what so and so referee did in the UFC or another big show. The problem I see time and time again though, is that many of you base your opinions on what happens right after a referee’s decision, be that a stoppage or point deduction or whatever. You look at video replays over and over again and make a judgement on details that a referee would not have had the benefit of seeing. How on earth can a referee base his decision on things that happen after he has made the decision?

So, should we start using video replays to check on what the referees are doing? Would this remove any controversy from the sport and make every decision a fair one? I don’t think so. Even with video evidence it would be impossible to remove all the disagreements. Just about the hardest decision for a referee to make is when one fighter receives a blow that almost finishes the fight. You’ve probably seen it. Both fighters are standing trading punches, one guy takes a big shot to the chin and goes down, his opponent pounces on top of him to finish the fight and make sure his adversary is out. The referee has all of about 10 milliseconds to decide if the downed fighter has been knocked down but is able to defend himself sufficiently to carry on or whether to jump in and stop the fight. 

In MMA the fighter who has been knocked down can grab on to his opponent, lock him up for a few valuable seconds and allow himself to recover. He may well manage to submit the other guy seconds later. Being able to make these sort of split-second decisions correctly is what verifies a referee’s ability to officiate at the top level. It is such a hard thing to do but it looks so bad if the wrong call is made when millions of people are watching. 

There are obvious pointers as to when a fighter has been KO’d and the need to jump straight in and stop a fight is called for. The two biggest things a ref will look at are the eyes of a fighter and his body language. It doesn’t take a genius to work out the factors that indicate a fighter is knocked out, but to this day I can’t explain how some referees (including myself) make their decisions so quickly.

In my opinion there are no great referees. The decisions we make are either correct or they are not, with a bit of a grey area in-between for certain issues. So, you have a bunch of referees out there, some of whom make more correct decisions than others. The ones who make the most correct decisions end up being classed as the good referees and get to officiate on the top shows. 

I was refereeing a fight a few months ago between two up- and-coming British fighters, John Maguire and Jake Bostwick. Both these guys are tough as hell and I knew it was going to be an explosive fight. With only 10 seconds left on the clock Maguire had put Bostwick in a crucifix position and was hammering his face. As Jake attempted to escape from underneath, his right arm was flailing around and his open palm tapped against Maguire’s backside. At that split second I believed that Bostwick was tapping, although he wasn’t taking many clean shots. I stopped the fight. 

Maguire jumped up and started celebrating; Bostwick protested. He argued that he had not tapped. I admitted that I had found it odd that he would tap at the time, and agreed to review the footage at a later date. I did review the footage and I did make a bad judgement, however, as we all know, hindsight is a wonderful thing and there is a bigger picture here, not just this fight. I had misinterpreted what had happened. Jake didn’t tap, but at the time it looked like he was tapping and as a responsible referee I have to err on the side of safety. 

Due to the fact that there was evidence to show that I could have misinterpreted something, I have let the original decision stand. Who can tell what would have happened if I had not stopped it? If we had tried to use the video evidence right after the fight on the night of the show I don’t think it would have done anyone any favours. There would certainly still have been just as much controversy. I have had numerous people tell me that they saw Jake tap and that it was a fair stoppage. A rematch has been arranged to clear things up.

I do not think that using replays is the way forward and it’s just a fact that whether you are a fighter or fan, you are going to have a difference of opinion with the referee. It’s all part of the sport.