UFC 96 Rampage vs Jardine Discussion Thread *Spoilers*

rovert

rovert wrote: »

Not strictly true as that depends of the rules of the State. Throwing the towel in isnt recognised as a legal/permissable move by some States.

Neill has a very good point in the above post.

I'm actually not sure what the rules were in that particular state. Regardless though, cornermen tend to be less objective when watching their guys fight. I dunno why but it'd very unusual for them to throw in the towel. Even BJs corner waited until the round was over.

It's the refs job to be the mediating presence and in this case I think Lavigne made a balls of it. Referees are there 1st and foremost to ensure the safety of the fighters. I personally elt very uncomfortable after a point watching the hockeying Sell took.

rovert

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm actually not sure what the rules were in that particular state. Regardless though, cornermen tend to be less objective when watching their guys fight. I dunno why but it'd very unusual for them to throw in the towel.

On that point you can go from fighters making their corner swear never ever to throw in the towel to the Gracies never quitting approach to fighting despite broken bones.

Kazooie

rovert wrote: »

On that point you can go from fighters making their corner swear never ever to throw in the towel to the Gracies never quitting approach to fighting despite broken bones.

Exactly. thats why the book stops with the ref. End of story, he's responsible for fighter safety.

ginoginelli

Yves comments on the brown/sell fight:



At the start of the fight featuring Matt Brown and Pete Sell Sell was rocked by a barrage of punches from Brown and fell to the ground. Referee Yves Lavigne stepped in momentarily then restarted the fight. “I screwed up. There’s not much to say. I screwed up the fight. I made a rookie mistake at the beginning and stopped it way too soon. I kind of restarted the fight. It wasn’t over at that point and I made the decision to look like a fool and say ok, keep going. I may have deprived Mr. Brown of an early victory but we’ll never know because of me.”

“I feel really bad. Fighters deserve the best. Instead of talking about Mr. Browns great win people are talking about a ref. Mr. Brown won with athleticism and tools he has and I’m taking the spotlight away because of my mistake. I feel really bad about it. He deserves better. He worked hard for that win.”
Lavigne insists that the stoppage in the earlier fight between Riley and Nelson had nothing to do with his actions, “No, not at all, it was not me in that fight. It’s my fault.”
After the fight Lavigne went to the back and checked on Sell, “Mr. Sell was ok, according to him and said I should’ve let it go.” Lavigne says. “I went to talk to him to see if he was ok. I do that on a regular basis after the fight. Sometimes with the adrenaline they tell the doctor they are ok but sometime later they are not. He really was ok.”
When asked if he talked to Dana White after the fight Lavigne responded, “I don’t talk to Dana White. The longest conversation I have ever had with him is hello and goodbye. I don’t work for him. I work for the Athletic Commission. My boss is Mr. Bernie Profato from Ohio. After that fight we had a quick debriefing next to the cage. He asked me a bunch of questions and I answered all of them. He asked me if I was good to go for the main event and I said, Yes Sir. He has the power to remove me but he didn’t. He could have put in Big Dan. We talked after the event and everything seemed fine.”
In another fight Lavigne had to step in after Mike Patt received some vicious leg kicks from Brandon Vera and couldn’t continue, “He probably is having problems walking today. You could hear the kicks. I bet it hurt like hell. I asked him twice if he wanted to continue. He didn’t really answer but he blinked with his eyes so I let it continue. He received one more kick and he went down. I gave him the opportunity to get up and he didn’t so I stepped in. At one point I figured he didn’t want to quit I understand I’ll make the decision for you. That’s what I should’ve done in the Pete Sell fight.”

Colm_OReilly

I always admire people who straight up say 'Look, I fuked up' so fair play to Lavigne for taking the responsibility.

Dragan

Some nice words from Yves i think. He seems more than willing to both take responsibility for his actions and decisions and also to admit that they were not the correct ones to make.

I am unsure as to what we can hold against him now, if anything. Yes, he made a mistake but he also has a huge list of fights where he made the perfect call.

Fair play to him tbh. Wish more of them did that.

Kazooie

Yup. Fair play to him. We're all human and make mistakes.*
Gotta respect him for admitting it straight away. He's still a top class ref in my view.


*Well Fedor's not human and never makes mistakes.

Nothingcompares

On the one hand I support his actions in restarting the fight after the first stoppage. He made a mistake, stopped it a moment too early and let the action get going again. Obviously the final stoppage should have came far earlier.


He made a mistake (stopped the fight first time), covered up for it well (restarted) then made a terrible blunder (let the fight continue).

ShawnRaven

Deleted User wrote: »

Late stoppages are WAY worse than early ones. Pete Sell was left in that fight about 30 seconds too long. He mounted NO offence and basically got the shit kicked out of him for a minute and a half.

Definitely. Don't wanna overdo the worst case scenario, but the referees have a job to do regarding fighter safety, too many blows to the head could result in permanent brain damage, prevention of that sort of thing is one of the reasons the referee is there in the first place.

And if Dana doesn't get his act together regarding stricter referees, he's gonna face serious media backlash back to the days of MMA being referred to as "human cockfighting", something Dana has been trying to stamp out for years.

ginoginelli

ShawnRaven wrote: »

if Dana doesn't get his act together regarding stricter referees,

This is up to the commision not dana. I wouldnt necessarily say stricter ref's need to be introduced, but better trained for sure. Yves usually a great ref, he just had a bad fight.

Stoppages can be tricky business in mma, and there is a fine line to be tread, but at ufc level particularly, i personally like to see the fights come to a conclusive end.

If only BJM could ref every fight. Nearly always perfect refereeing and judgement calls. Perhaps if he could be more influential in the training process and guidelines, we would have less controversy and a safer environment for the fighters.

ShawnRaven

ginoginelli wrote: »

This is up to the commision not dana. I wouldnt necessarily say stricter ref's need to be introduced, but better trained for sure. Yves usually a great ref, he just had a bad fight.

Cheers for clearing that up.

But this is why i phrased it the way I did, I jump over Mazzagatti time in and time out for his reffing, and i agree, Yves is usually a very consistant referee. But that fight could have turned out disasterous. Even Matt Brown was screaming "C'mon, stop the fight". Because Brown sure as hell doesn't want to be the cause of permanent damage to the guy just because the referee screwed up.

That said, Yves has publically admitted that he screwed up, and that takes a lot, and as Neil said, more should own up. But it could have been a major disaster. Especially as Sell didn't look all that great going into the fight in the first place.