The war between Elizeu Zaleski and Benoit Saint-Denis at UFC 267 should have grabbed headlines, but instead many in the MMA world are talking about the referee. Vyacheslav Kiselev, the appointed ref for the bout, allowed Saint-Denis to suffer continuous unanswered shots, with commentators Jon Anik, Daniel Cormier, and Paul Felder all audibly yelling at him to stop the fight on the broadcast.
Following the fight, officials, athletes, and even “Big” John McCarthy weighed in on the “worst job of officiating at a UFC event ever”.
Big John, DC Blast “worst job of officiating at an UFC event ever”
“Holy Hell, @marcgoddard_uk @MarcRatnerUFC I just watched the worst job of officiating at an @UFC event ever!!! Please just don’t let him do another fight….. EVER!!!” wrote McCarthy on Twitter.
Big John was a critical component in the development of mixed martial arts as a sport, contributing enormously to the Unified Rules of MMA that define the sport to this day. Many of the rules he was instrumental in bringing in were centered around fighter safety, prioritizing the athletes’ wellbeing in an inherently brutal environment.
Daniel Cormier was next to weigh in. “Honestly the worst performance I have seen from a referee in my life. Honestly a hard job but man unreal. Makes you respect the good ones like
and many more. I hated watching that I hope Benoit is heading to hospital right now !”
Referee stoppages were introduced to mixed martial arts early on as a way to avoid fighters taking unnecessary damage in the cage.
They also act to prevent coaches from having to throw in the towel and, in doing so, be seen as giving up on the fight. On that note, Benoit Saint Denis’ coach claimed he was proud of his fighter, and “never would have thrown in the towel”.
““Never in my life would I have thrown in the towel,” Woirin said. “The referee it’s true that he could have stopped it at one point, I thought he was going to stop it but he didn’t.
Benoit has been able to pull himself together in phases. He took a lot of punches but he was able to pull himself together, which allowed him to survive. This is the fight, the fight is hard, you must not be.
People are too sensitive. Benoit is a warrior, for his first fight in the UFC he will lose before the limit? It’s not possible.
We also discussed it after the fight and he told me that I was right not to throw in the towel. But anyway it didn’t even pass a second in my head, not even a second and you can see he got back into the fight. He had a great fight. The guy he took is a top 12, the guy has 30 fights, 14 knockouts. Benoit had a great fight, I’m really happy.”
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