Top MMA Referees

ethanhawk

Have to say having seeing the fedor fight and how i felt the fight was stopped so early i was closely looking at the refs in UFC 133 and for me Dan Miragliotta is the top ref in the business at this moment in time he seems to give the fight more time to develop what you guys think.

dave80

Herb dean

scudzilla

Dan is a good ref, a lot better than he was 12/18 months ago but he's still got some way to go to be the best.

Best ref's in the business, IMO, are Herb Dean (No.1), Josh Rosenthal (No.2) & Marc Goddard (No.3)

There's been times lately when it seems that some 'smaller' refs have been thrown into big events (UFC) only because the commission that the event is under has different rules. Why they can't use the ref's from just 1 group is beyond me.

I know Big Dan quite well on a personal level, he was saying some time ago that the UFC ref's were given a choice, They could either work the Vegas/West Coast events or The rest of the world. Dan chose RotW, but it seems they've started pulling some of the Vegas guys out for the odd event now

unknown13

The top 3 in my eyes are: Dean, Yamasaki & Big John

DrPhilG

Big John has slipped down the list badly of late, had a few poor calls.

Hard to beat Mazagatti though...

I'M JOKING!!!

Mellor

ethanhawk wrote: »

Have to say having seeing the fedor fight and how i felt the fight was stopped so early i was closely looking at the refs in UFC 133 and for me Dan Miragliotta is the top ref in the business at this moment in time he seems to give the fight more time to develop what you guys think.

Why do you think Fedor was stopped early?
I've heard hat countless times but I'm yet to hear anyone back it up with any sory of justification.

Feor was knocked out, the fight was over. Herb Dean was spot on, reaction time was superb and he did his job perfectly, prevented Fedor taking unnessecery damage. Proved he is the best in the world.

DrPhilG

Mellor wrote: »

Why do you think Fedor was stopped early?
I've heard hat countless times but I'm yet to hear anyone back it up with any sory of justification.

Feor was knocked out, the fight was over. Herb Dean was spot on, reaction time was superb and he did his job perfectly, prevented Fedor taking unnessecery damage. Proved he is the best in the world.

I read Herb's explanation too and he was bang on. He said it's his job to stop the fight when the fighter is unconscious, which Fedor was. It's not his job to guess whether or not a fighter is going to regain consciousness a second later.

It was similar to the Ebersole vs PantyHallman fight the other night. At first glance it seemed like the stoppage was a bit fast as Hallman was still trying to defend. But on the replay you could see that after a heavy elbow, his head dropped and his arm fell limp and at that exact moment the ref stepped in.

Mellor

DrPhilG wrote: »

I read Herb's explanation too and he was bang on. He said it's his job to stop the fight when the fighter is unconscious, which Fedor was. It's not his job to guess whether or not a fighter is going to regain consciousness a second later.

It was similar to the Ebersole vs PantyHallman fight the other night. At first glance it seemed like the stoppage was a bit fast as Hallman was still trying to defend. But on the replay you could see that after a heavy elbow, his head dropped and his arm fell limp and at that exact moment the ref stepped in.

Exactly, the fact that Fedor regain consciousness is irrelevant because once he is out its over, it was probably the big shots to the head that woke him. There is a gif of him standing up and you can see he was shakey as hell

Tim_Murphy

Dave Jones!

Tito Ortiz

I think Herb Dean is the best around and the fact he has fought MMA gives him a good understanding of what is going on in relation to body postions and fighters reactions to shots ..

JoeyJJ

Listen to Herb on last weeks MMA Hour, he was spot on, Top Ref and sounds like a really good person also.

Loved how he straight away shot down the idea of any contraversy at all, and I agree with him especially after watching it again.

Didn't like Vitors punches to the back of the head the other night, some of those were in the foul area.

Tim_Murphy

JoeyJJ wrote: »

Didn't like Vitors punches to the back of the head the other night, some of those were in the foul area.

The last two were fouls for sure, he was done at that stage though so I'm not sure what you could do about it really.

JoeyJJ

Yeah its a can of worms that one, it was actually discussed on the mma hour with Herb last week. Think Mario may have stepped in on a fight and gave the oponent time to recover after blows to the back of the head when they might have been out from legal blows. Must listen again and find the fight.

Its a hard one, Vitor should have been more careful, maybe a fine of x amount should go to the loser from the winners purse.

MrStuffins

Steve Mazagatti!!