UFC Baku was a reasonably fun event. The overall finishing percentage was fairly high, there were a couple prospects who appear to be legitimate talents, and more than one veteran really impressed against another high-level opponent. There were a couple gassy Middleweight bouts — and we’ll dive in-depth into one of ’em in a moment — but there really wasn’t much to complain about regarding the action in the Octagon.
The officiating on the other hand? It continues to be terrible.
Thankfully, the very
first bout of the evening set the tone, as hometown favorite Tahir Abdullayev was awarded a ground-and-pound TKO over Jefferson Nascimento for shots that didn’t land particularly hard. Later on, referee Marc Goddard was a little slow to intervene when Nursulton Ruziboev strangled Andrey Pulyaev, resulting in a sleeping Russian and the insane photo below.
Timing a stoppage is difficult, of course. It’s easy to be a little early or a little too late, even if there are consequences in that gray area. A larger source of frustration are the obvious fouls that pause the action, are reviewed thoroughly via instant replay, and still are not taken seriously. For the third time in as many weeks, veteran referee Herb Dean finds himself in the center of the controversy due to his officiating of Shara Magomedov’s decision win over Michel Pereira.
The fouling began with a seemingly unnoticed fence grab from “Bullet.” Not long afterward, Pereira dropped the Russian with a heavy counter right hand, and he moved into guard, where he dropped punches and elbows in pursuit of the finish. While hammering away, Magomedov grabbed his hair as a way to control posture and avoid damage.
Herb Dean intervened but did not deduct a point. He gave Magomedov a warning … also known as time to recover from the onslaught.
Magomedov bounced back in the second round without real issue, leaving the fight up for grabs with five minutes remaining. Unfortunately, his comeback performance was marred midway through by a blatant eye poke that can be seen below.
Once again, Dean stopped the action and administered a warning. There may have been another eye poke before the bell also, but at a minimum, Magomedov was extending his fingers forward in an illegal manner that the broadcast repeatedly told us would not be tolerated (Abus Magomedov did the same to great effect in his win over Michal Oleksiejczuk).
It’s understandable to miss a fence grab or eye poke. Fighting is chaos, and the referee has to be considering all the action simultaneously. They may be at the wrong angle to witness the foul. When the action is actually halted, however, and the foul is replayed multiple times in high-definition and seen by thousands of fans around the globe — how is inaction still possible?
Pereira should be pissed. Magomedov intentionally cheated in the first round to help avoid being finished, as there’s never been an accidental hair pull. The third-round eye poke certainly looked intentional, but even if we give “Bullet” the benefit of the doubt, that’s still two clear fight-changing fouls in 15 minutes. Is that not enough for a single point deduction, which would have changed a 28-29 Pereira loss to a draw?
Referees are loath to get involved with scorecards and piss off the fanbase, but fans are already angry! There’s outrage online over the general legality of cheating and timidity of referees. In addition, nobody walks away from this impressed by Shara Magomedov, the man who cheated his ass off and still barely won a ho-hum decision. Would stepping in to provide some order and change the outcome to a draw really change his future prospects?
The sad part of the officiating failure is how consistently it happens. I could write an article similar to this one with different names and fouls after every UFC event; I only ration them out to avoid redundancy. For all the talk of stiffer regulations and shorter leashes, there has been no significant change.
For complete UFC Baku results and play-by-play, click here.
