Referee Dan Miragliotta made the inexplicable decision to stand up the fight between Renato Moicano and Tom Nolan despite the Brazilian maintaining back control with a body triangle, which is one of the most dominant positions in the sport.
Moments later, Nolan nearly scored a finish before ultimately putting Moicano away in the third round. While standups are always a referee’s discretion, Miragliotta has been highly criticized for his decision, which took away a very dominant position from Moicano,
who was still working for a finish when he was forced back to his feet.
Retired UFC welterweight Matt Brown was shocked by the move, and he unleashed on Miragliotta when reacting to the situation.
“This f*cking standup,” Brown said on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. “What are these motherf*ckers doing? What the f*ck are we doing? I wonder if these commissions and judges, if they’re getting any pressure from the UFC to do things like that. We should know the commissions, referees, judges, they’re there to be neutral, they’re there for the fighters and to enforce the rules as they sit. They should not be influencing a fight in any f*cking fashion at all. The referee is supposed to stay out of the fight.
“I don’t like standups in general. I don’t like them at all as a rule. It’s mixed martial arts, it’s not kickboxing, it’s not Muay Thai. We know there’s a little bit of a push from the UFC to be more exciting, to be on the feet more, they’re not signing as many wrestlers. We have to question if there’s some influence there to the commissions, but the commissions should be completely neutral.”
It’s unknown how much Miragliotta’s standup ultimately affected the fight but Moicano lost a dominant position and then he was nearly finished moments later.
When the third round got started, Nolan completely took over and then put Moicano away to score the biggest win of his young career. In the end, Moicano suffered a loss in a fight he was dominating just moments later.
Brown knows referees have difficult, thankless jobs when it comes to MMA, but he also recognizes that the egregious standup potentially cost Moicano the fight and yet Miragliotta won’t suffer any consequences for his actions.
“What we forget, that fight is Moicano’s f*cking life,” Brown said. “He affected his life. He affected the amount of money he got today. He affected the amount of money he’s going to get in his next fight. He affected his ranking. His ability to work towards whether it’s a title run or a bigger fight. He affected his sponsorship. That’s literally his entire life he’s affecting with an absolutely foolish call. An absolutely foolish call.
“Dan Miragliotta f*cked up big time. Should be reprimanded. It should never happen again. He should suffer at minimum those same consequences [as Renato Moicano]. He should lose some money. He should lose his ability to ref big fights.”
Brown also argues that Miragliotta’s mistake is just another glaring example of inconsistency with refereeing in the sport, which is just impossibly tough on the athletes.
Whether it’s a standup like what happened at UFC Vegas 123, or point deductions for fouls, Brown knows that fighters are dramatically affected by how a referee calls a fight, and he’s seen far too many inconsistencies happen over the years.
“As a former competitor myself, as a fan of the sport, a hardcore fan, I want consistency,” Brown said. “The fighters should know what’s going to happen, which is the other point, too. There was no warning. Miragliotta didn’t give him any warnings, which is complete garbage. That makes it even worse. All an athlete can ask for is consistency. He has to know what he’s getting into Moicano needs to know ‘OK, if I don’t do something, I’m going to get stood up.’
“There’s no way he ever expected in his life he’s going to hold the back for however long he held it for and worry about getting stood up at all. He worked very hard to get to that position. Why should he get stood up from there?”
