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Dana White: If MMA used instant replay, Jon Jones would be undefeated

By Zach Arnold | September 11, 2012

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On a day where the UFC 10/13 Brazil show card got shredded due to Rampage Jackson pulling out of his fight with Glover Teixeira and Jose Aldo having to pull out of his fight against Frankie Edgar, Dana finds himself on an island of turmoil right now as far as matchmaking goes.

Which is why I’m amused to see him backtrack as fast as he can from comments he made about Greg Jackson and Jon Jones ‘murdering the sport’ of MMA because Jones wouldn’t fight Chael Sonnen on September 1st in Las Vegas.

Part of that backtracking, as we so often see from Dana after a blow-up, is trying to softening his public stance on Jones despite not talking to him (yet). In his infinite wisdom, Dana decided to try to put over Jones while talking about his favorite subject, which is bad officiating & judging in MMA. Another favorite Dana conversation point is his disdain for referee Steve Mazzagatti. Throw in all three subjects and you get what you get here during this interview on Inside MMA.

Yes, according to Dana, instant replay would have prevented Steve Mazzagatti from disqualifying Jon Jones for using 12-to-6 elbows on Matt Hamill. Except, there’s one problem with this claim…

Instant replay was used for the Jon Jones/Matt Hamill fight that Mazzagatti officiated.

DANA WHITE: “Every other sport has instant replay. Fighting needs to, too, especially with how bad the officiating has been. Judges and reffing. Instant replay…”

BAS RUTTEN: “That’s it!”

DANA WHITE: “They’ve got this thing with combat sports, OK? These athletic commissions has this thing where it’s like once a guy makes a decision, it can’t be overturned.”

BAS RUTTEN: “It’s B.S.”

DANA WHITE: “It’s INSANE! It’s INSANE! In football if you make a mistake, guys are going to make mistakes, you can’t be at all the angles, you can’t see everything. And this sport is so young, there’s a lot of people that are not qualified to judge and ref this sport that are judging and reffing it. Instant replay makes sense and instant replay would be awesome because the thing that people do understand but some don’t, once you make a decision and it’s a bad cal you effect this guy’s life forever.”

BAS RUTTEN: “People say, ‘it takes too long.’ It takes five seconds.”

DANA WHITE: “EXACTLY. And you make a mistake in a baseball game, there’s 190 more baseball games this season, OK? They’ll be all right, they’ll make up for it. You make a mistake in fighting, it hurts this guy immensely.”

(later on…)

KENNY RICE: “How does it ever get fixed in the next couple of years?”

DANA WHITE: “It has to get better. It has to get better. I mean, if it doesn’t… everybody’s in trouble. You know, I consistently when bad calls are made I call people out and, you know, we’re doing everything we can to try to stop this from happening. It’s literally, I think it’s one of the worst things that can happen if a guy loses a fight that didn’t really lose that fight. It’s just… I mean, you know more than anybody how hard these guys work, how hard they train, how much they put into this, and… it effects their money, their legacy, it effects everything. I mean, Jon Jones has one loss on his record that isn’t right!”

BAS RUTTEN: “That wasn’t a loss.”

DANA WHITE: “That wasn’t a loss. He should be undefeated right now. We should be able to go out and promote Jon Jones as the undisputed, undefeated Light Heavyweight champion. But we can’t because there was a guy reffing a fight that didn’t belong there.”

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 33 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

33 Responses to “Dana White: If MMA used instant replay, Jon Jones would be undefeated”

  1. 45 Huddle says:

    As I have said before and I will say again….

    All PPV’s should have the following format….

    2 Title Fights & #1 Contender Fight

    If they had it for UFC 153, they wouldn’t be scrambling so hard right now.

    PPV’s should be special. They should be loaded cards to ask people to be paying $55 per card. PPV’s shouldn’t be falling apart or being cancelled over 1 injury.

    • Alan Conceicao says:

      They’re gonna need a random Noguiera to probably bail them out. Instead, they should move the card out a month or two and rebook the same main event. I’ll be surprised if they do that.

  2. david m says:

    If Steve Mazzagatti didn’t want to see Matt Hamill die in the Octagon, Jon Jones would be undefeated. One of the worst non-stoppages this side of Bellator.

  3. 45 Huddle says:

    Cole Konrad retired. Not a huge shock. He never seemed to have the love for MMA and seems a little too intelligent to pick fighting as a career path.

    Bellator should use this as a way to stop their Heavyweight Division. Just promote 6 divisions…. Light Heavyweight to Bantamweight.

    • Alan Conceicao says:

      I’d be happy if Bellator just stopped altogether, TBH.

      • 45 Huddle says:

        It wouldn’t be such a bad thing. How many shows have they had so far? Like 70? And they have had under 5 meaningful fights off the top of my head.

        1. Michael Chandler vs. Eddie Alvarez
        2. Eddie Alvarez vs. Shinya Aoki
        3. Ben Askren vs. Jay Hieron

        Yeap, those are the only 3 fights I can think of that had any real meaning. And none of them have really bad big time fights. 26 Total Tournaments and they have maybe discovered 3 future Top 10 fighters…. Chandler, Askren, & Curran. And two of them are like watching paint dry.

        It’s basically become like another TUF. Bunch of useless tournaments that aren’t finding the real prospects.

        And of their 8 Champions….

        2 have vacated the belt (Konrad & Lombard). 2 have lost in non-title fights (M’Pumba & Dantas). And Zoila Gurgel has not defended her belt in almost 2 years.

  4. Alan Conceicao says:

    LOL, Bonnar/Silva? Unbelievable. Boxing doesn’t even make fights this bad anymore.

    • 45 Huddle says:

      2 Title Fights Per PPV…. Do 8 PPV’s per year. That is 2 title defenses per champion. If a champion can do more, then those extra championship fights get pushed to FOX.

      It is the only solution to this abomination that is becoming the UFC. Assuming both UFC 153 title fights happen, the UFC will have only put on 10 title fights through 9 months in 2012. And two of those were interim title fights. Which means they have not even had 1 legit title fight per month in 2012. This is what happens when they try and space things out and spread too thin.

      It’s becoming embarrassing at how bad they have let things slide.

      I meant UFC 152 Title fights happen…

      • cutch says:

        Stop embarrassing yourself, if the UFC did what you just said they would have maybe did 5 PPVs in their history.

        It’s not a fact that deep cards sell more PPVs and Bonnar-Silva isn’t a title fight but it will sell better than Aldo Vs Edgar ever would.

        They should maybe stack cards like UFC 146 with one weight class and if something happens to one or two fighters they can just re-book the card.

        • 45 Huddle says:

          Maybe not every PPV, but that should be their goal. They have 8 champions to work with right now so my idea (including FOX) would require an average of 2.5 Title defenses for their champions per year. Not unreasonable at all.

    • Megatherium says:

      ^^^
      An attempted response to Alan Conceicao’s Silva/Bonnar post.

      They can’t be embarrassed. They don’t feel shame.

      It can’t be done.

    • edub says:

      Easy there, lets not pull out the list of opponents for Wladimir this year.

      • Alan Conceicao says:

        Oh, they’re not very good, but then again he’s at the zenith of the sport in the heavyweight division, and unlike the UFC, he can’t force the guys around him to fight him.

        • edub says:

          Very true. However, its starting to look like Zuffa’s power to do exactly that is wearing thin. I mean if Stephan Bonnar is the only guy to step up then I don’t see them flexing too much promotional muscle.

          WOuld it have been that hard to convince Shogun to fight Silva?

        • Alan Conceicao says:

          Or how about Teixeria, who is higher ranked and a better fighter than Bonnar in 2012? I get what you’re saying here. I think that power was greatly exaggerated to start with.

  5. david m says:

    Anderson Silva accepting a fight against a guy in a higher weight class makes Jon Jones look like a complete bitch for turning down a fight against a guy in a lower weight class who was fighting him on short notice.

    • The Gaijin says:

      It’s Stephan Bonnar for crying out loud…let’s not start s*cking each other off over Silva’s fortitude of fighting a completely irrelevant LHW (this is James Irvin level bad) as opposed to a multiple time #1 contender at MW (as much as I think he sucks).

      • 45 Huddle says:

        A lot of fighters took fights on a short term notice for UFC 143. Frank Edgar, Stephan Bonnar, Anderson Silva, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, & David Herman.

        And Jon Jones couldn’t even take a fight on a full training camp with a naturally smaller fighter who would have been in much worse shape.

        Edgar, Silva, & Nogueira have all been champions. They know what that level is about. And they didn’t d!cktuck like Jones did and allow an event to be doomed because of it.

        • Alan Conceicao says:

          Is Silva refusing to fight any of the middleweight contenders by stating he wanted the rest of the year off, only to fight again against an irrelevant nearly retired gatekeeper a greater example of “d!cktucking”? Will we ever know?

        • edub says:

          All with a month’s notice.

          Completely different.

        • 45 Huddle says:

          Are you really comparing fighting a #1 Contender in a fighters own weight class to fighting a guy from a weight class below who is about 50% maximum prepared as Jones was?

        • 45 Huddle says:

          Frank Edgar took a fight on short notice against the best 145 lbs fighter in the world. Anderson Silva is taking a fight on short notice in the weight class above him. So is Vitor Belfort. Chael Sonnen was willing to do the same thing.

          The only person who seems to be having a problem with taking a fight on short notice is Jon Jones…. And that was against a half trained smaller opponent.

          Silva, Edgar, & Nogueira are showing what true MMA Champions should be. Jones is d!cktucking….

        • Alan Conceicao says:

          Are you really comparing fighting a #1 Contender in a fighters own weight class to fighting a guy from a weight class below who is about 50% maximum prepared as Jones was?

          There was nothing stopping Dana White from trying to make a middleweight title fight at any point this year with Silva except his management saying he was taking the rest of 2012 off, and, oh, BTW, Weidman better win at least another fight before he calls out Silva. And now he isn’t taking the year off and he isn’t fighting anyone at 185. So.

        • edub says:

          You mentioned Silva and Nogueira also. Nogueira is fighting Herman (not a #1 contender fight at all). Silva is fighting Bonnar (not either).

          You also act like Sonnen and Belfort don’t have everything to gain, and nothing to lose by stepping up on short notice to fight Jones.

        • Jay B says:

          Yeah edub, and they dont stand a chance of winning. Sorry.

      • Alan Conceicao says:

        They’re also taking them on with far more time to prepare. I bet if they brought out Bonnar as a prospective replacement we’d still have had UFC 151.

  6. Megatherium says:

    Here’s a little something to get everyone pumped up for the big Silva/Bonnar fight.

    Machida vs Bonnar!

    http://youtu.be/ZdLj52AqBnU

  7. Megatherium says:

    This one ought to have you fellas primed for the big fight!

    http://youtu.be/RweYWTBmpFg

  8. The Judge says:

    Ok, besides the Jones DQ fiasco, how many fights can we think of that would really be fixed by instant replay?

    I agree that judging in MMA often sucks. Forest Griffin would have won maybe two fights if we had qualified judges and Dan Henderson would look a lot less dangerous. But you can’t have judges re-watching the tape of the entire 25-minute fight on a small chance they will change their view of what happened.
    And referees? I think some of the stoppages lately have been too fast, due to worries about fighter safety and wanting to have knockouts, but you can’t have them restart the fight after declaring that it’s over and one of the fighters has won.
    So what else can be instantly replayed?
    Low blows? Those rarely make a difference.
    Making the fighters stand up after inactivity too early? Moot, once it’s done.
    I don’t see a scenario in which instant replay would make a difference.

    • The Gaijin says:

      They used instant replay in the Jones fight.

    • Jay B says:

      You cant use judges to watch and replay a WHOLE Fight. that just destroys the purpose of instant replay. Pretty sure they are talking about controversial finishes such as “defenseless fighter” rule and guys who respond and called KO’d by refs (Questionable stoppages as you put it). Along with low blows and illegal blows.

  9. The Judge says:

    Illegal/low blows, especially questionable illegal/low blows, have figured in the decision of a fight only a handful of times, so it’s ridiculous for Dana to suggest that it’s ruining MMA not to have it…fighter says he is hurt, it looked like he might have been low-blow’ed? I say, it’s smarter to let him have a little breather than video review the tape for five minutes (think of NFL instant replay) which would give him that same breather anyway. How do you imagine instant replay for KO’s? Stop, let’s go to the video tape and if he wasn’t KO’ed, well, lie back down? All the emotional thrill of a TKO would be dismissed if they had to wait over a minute each time, while the judges reviewed it.
    No, the only way to solve these problems is to hire good refs. Everything else takes the fight out of the octagon and into a little black hood covered box, which is not what anybody wants to see.
    I would even argue that perhaps one or two bad calls over the years make the game exciting, you want to see justice done, you want a rematch, you talk about the bad call heard around the world. We wanted to see Edgar-Maynard rematch, another Condit-Diaz, every single fight Florist Griffin won, etc.. As long as it doesn’t become too widespread, it’s a small price to pay.

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