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UFC President Dana White says he doesn’t know what to do about fixing bad referee work and bad judges
By Zach Arnold | June 13, 2010
The headline in this interview is about Dana White waiving the white flag on Chuck Liddell’s career (more on that later in a separate posting), but his remarks about judging deserve some attention given how the names Yves Lavigne and Tony Weeks will be discussed for several days online coming up.
ARIEL HELWANI: “The Matt Wiman fight, obviously ended controversially. How do you rectify the situation? Because you have said of course you thought was an early stoppage. Everyone would agree on that. But this seems to be the one sort of negative cloud that always hangs over the events when the refs stop the fights too early or the judges. How do you rectify this?”
DANA WHITE: “There’s always bad reffing, man, it sucks. You know, a referee should know when a guy’s choked out and a referee shouldn’t be sitting there listening, have to listen to a fighter, the fighter’s going ‘he’s out! he’s out’ The referee should know when a guy’s out. You don’t listen to a fighter. You know what I mean? You should know when the guy’s choked out and you should in and make a decision. It’s the same thing with clinching — you see these guys in a stalemate just standing there forever and a ref just standing there staring at them. Be a referee, get in there and make some decisions. Know what you’re talking about. Know the sport! Know when a guy’s in a certain submission and when he’s choked. It’s why, I’m telling you man, I wish they could clone Herb Dean, you know. And it’s not like I’m friends with Herb Dean, I’ve probably said five words to Herb Dean in my whole life but I respect him. I think this guy’s the greatest referee in the history of the sport and the commissions should have this guy putting on clinics and he needs to a choke a few of these other referees out so they know what it is and what it feels like and you know it’s just, it’s getting to the point now where it’s starting to get ridiculous and as we get more fights every year going on, you know, it’s just going to mean more problems if we don’t get good referees.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “Here’s the thing, though. I know you always say it’s up to the commission, right? And ultimately it is up to the commission. You get new media and new fans they just point the finger at you and the UFC and they say, look at these refs, they don’t know what they’re doing, so in some ways like it’s this cloud hanging over your events. So what can you do, if anything, to rectify it?”
DANA WHITE: “It’s true and it’s weird that it’s happening to us because in boxing everybody knew the referees had nothing to do with them. You still get that stuff like Don King paid the ref. Let me tell you what — the refs and the athletic commissions [couldn’t] give a [expletive] what I think. They don’t care, you know, I try to give them my input all the time. I’m very public about how I feel about fights and how I feel about referees but it does not good, man, I don’t know what else to do.”
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 12 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Bull. If he threatened to run in a state who would work with better judging systems, they’d very quickly listen.
Dana knows he has an incredible amount of stroke with every commission on the planet since he’s been making them so much money. If he told them “I want you to come into the AC office wearing your underwear over your pants for a full month”, they’d do it. So if he came in and said “Look, these judges are retards and some of these referees are so damn dumb they can’t tell the difference between an armbar attempt and an upkick. Get me somebody who knows what the hell they’re doing!” They’d do it. But he doesn’t want to rock the boat, especially in Nevada where his associates are still part of the NSAC clique, by suggesting especially the judges need to be retrained. What happens to Dana’s “great big balls tells it like it is” persona when it matters?
Well, if he started actively suggesting changes about judging/reffing to the ACs, then people would also push him for drug testing reform. And I’m not sure Dana wants that.
Marc Ratner has tremendous sway with the commissions. I know that for a fact.
Let Dana climb in there and ref for 15-20 shows. That’s what I want to see.
I think it was be a fantastic idea every 5 years or so to have a “new deal” type overhaul of everything that needs work: refereeing, judging, rules, drug tests, ect. Just make it a point on a certain date every 5 years to have the commissions meet with the top promoters and have a discussion about what is wrong with the system, what is outdated about the rules, and suggestions on what could be done to make things better and then go from there.
Has the occasional bad reffing been eliminated from any other sports? Ever?
It seems to be the biggest headache and thorn when bad reffing/judging strikes major/important matches.
For title matches, grudge matches, headliners, etc I wish there was a way to insure that the best and brightest in the judging/reffing biz where necessarily assigned to the job.
Something like a hierarchy of reputation.
UFC benefits from bad judges. They are spread so thin when it comes to main events these days since they run so many shows…controversial decisions like BJ/Edgar & Shogun/Lyoto score them another main event with a built in story line.
It all boils down to money.
Recruiting more talented judges/refs and training them requires money. Same goes for blood testing versus urine testing. The AC’s don’t want to foot the bill and neither does the UFC.
Until somebody volunteers to pony up the cash to make meaningful reforms, we are going to be stuck with the status quo.
I don’t know of any ACs that pay for any officials training. Naturally, I could be wrong, but the few states I know from personal experience don’t train officials and don’t do anything to see that they get any updates to any training that they might have.
When officials go to seminars, the officials foot the bills.
Exactly.
The commissions don’t train their refs/judges and the refs/judges don’t get paid enough to make paying for training worth their while. Until someone invests in cultivating talented refs/judges, we’ll be stuck with the status quo.
The commission should be able to review fights on a case by case basis and overturn certain ones where the ref clearly made a mistake that directly affected the outcome. Wiman vs Danzig should be overturned and ruled a no-contest.
Here’s one obvious improvement Dana. Allow Big John to ref Zuffa events. Even if you have a personal problem with him and I know you do, he’s still the best or in the top 2 refs out there.
Regarding judging, I can fix a big part of your judging problem too. I can’t fix the Tony Weeks level of skill, however I can fix the judges not getting decisions right most of the time.
Allow the judges to have one monitor and one monitor only. That monitor would be a ref cam, a la Strikeforce. Yes Mr. Kizer, potentially the judge would view the monitor rather than the live show periodically rather than viewing the actual fight, which might be better. He however would still be able to see 95% of the fight rather than the current approx 50% of the fighting that he currently sees due to cage blockage and ground fighting where he can only see their backs.
Your welcome Keith.
Herb Dean as the best referee? HELL NO!!!! More of UFC propaganda. John McCarthy is the best MMA referee.