Referee Dan Miragliotta inserted himself into the UFC Vegas 123 main event with an inexplicable standup that left the entire broadcast team dazed and confused.
In the second round, Renato Moicano was on Tom Nolan’s back with a body triangle locked on as he peppered away with punches and kept trying to find a home for his rear naked choke. But out of nowhere with boos raining down from the Meta APEX crowd, Miragliotta decided to stand the fighters up and take the dominant position away from Moicano.
A few moments later, Nolan scored a knockdown before ultimately finishing the fight with ground and pound in the third round. As much as Nolan’s win should be celebrated, the entire UFC broadcast team was stunned as Miragliotta’s move, which clearly shifted the momentum in the fight.
“I just hate that something like that — I don’t care what anybody says, a referee error ultimately casts a little bit of a shadow over what was a beautiful performance by Tom Nolan,” UFC Hall of Famer Daniel Cormier said on the post-fight show. “We saw since the very beginning in the striking,
“It was Tom Nolan’s world. He ultimately got the fight done by using his striking to get to the position to finish on the mat.”
That said, Cormier was at a loss to explain Miragliotta’s decision to stand the fighters up with Moicano in such a dominant position.
“I’m being completely honest here guys, it’s not because I love grappling,” Cormier explained. “It is so difficult to get to that position. That is such a dominant position. While Moicano was maybe not punching him, he was trying to reach, trying to hand fight to try to get the chokes, that’s what you do.
“You can stop a lot of positions but I just don’t think a ref should take anybody out of mount ever, should never take anybody off of the back like that. I don’t think you take those types of positions and change them. They’re just too dominant.”
UFC commentator Laura Sanko was also at a loss to explain the referee’s move and she defended Moicano working hard to maintain the position, which just didn’t warrant a standup.
“That is being active in that position,” Sanko added. “You can’t sit there and punch all the time. Getting to that spot is advancing your position in grappling. Aljamain Sterling was freaking out [in the crowd].”
While Moicano survived the round, there’s no doubt Nolan’s comeback started after the standup from the referee.
UFC analyst Din Thomas can’t help but wonder if Moicano might actually try to fight what happened with the Nevada State Athletic Commission, although standups like the one on Saturday night are totally at a referee’s discretion.
In other words, it’s highly unlikely Moicano has any argument to make about the outcome in the fight.
“I don’t know if the outcome would have been any different without the standup, but I’ve got to say the standup is questionable,” Thomas said during the post-show. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Moicano didn’t try to appeal that.”
