Den delade huvudmatchen mellan Chris Weidman och Gegard Mousasi slutade med ett rejält antiklimax och nu ämnar domare ”Big” John McCarthy att reda ut vad som egentligen hände.
En av de mest efterlängtade matcherna under UFC 210 var mötet mellan Chris Weidman (13-3) och Gegard Mousasi (42–6–2). Båda fighters befinner sig i toppen av mellanviktsdivisionen och en dominerande uppvisning skulle göra dem aktuella för en eventuell titelmatch i framtiden.
Trots att matchen började spännande så tog allt en abrupt vändning då Mousasi fångade Weidman och försökte knäa honom i ansiktet. Domare Dan Miragliotta valde att pausa matchen då han trodde att knäna var otillåtna och tog både hjälp av sin kollega ”Big” John McCarthy och tittade närmare på reprisen av händelsen.
Knäna visade sig vara tillåtna och efter mycket förvirring hos både domare, fighters och fans så stod det klart att matchen skulle avbrytas och att vinsten skulle ges till Mousasi via TKO. Det var dock inte ett populärt beslut och Weidman har sagt att han kommer överklaga domslutet.
Nu ger domare McCarthy sin sida av historien och säger bland annat att folk missar att förstå att Mousasi var den som blev orättvist behandlad:
(vill du inte läsa MMA Junkies transkribering hittar du videon längst ned)
“What everybody’s not looking at is, they all look and say, ‘Oh, that’s unfair to Chris Weidman,’” sade McCarthy till MMAjunkie Radio. “In a way, it kind of is to a point. But no, it’s unfair to Gegard Mousasi. Mousasi is the guy that got screwed over, except for the ending. Because Mousasi does things that are all legal for him to do, and he hurts – we’ll say – Chris, because Chris is going to say, ‘I’m hurt.’
“And if you’re going to say, ‘I’m hurt,’ I’m going to say, ‘OK, you’re hurt.’ He did it legally. And now they’re taking him away from you to hurt you more, and giving you time to recover from something that was legal. That’s bad. That’s the bad part.”
Miragliotta hade en dålig vinkel
Även för en erfaren domare som McCarthy hör dessa situationer inte till vanligheterna och trots att en domare är närmast kämparna så finns det vinklar som gör det svårt för dem att ta in hela skedet:
“When that happened, I’m sitting there, and I have a different angle,” sade McCarthy. “If you go back and you look, and this is what happens and this is why people go, ‘The referee is the close one. He sees it.’ Everything is depending upon your placement and your positioning. He’s in a position where he’s starting to move and the fighters start to move, because if you look at it, Weidman had had Mousasi in a mount, and then Mousasi rolls out of it and comes up, and then Weidman gets down.
“Mousasi has his head down, and Weidman goes and puts his hand on the ground in a way that is not part of what we’re going to say is a grounded fighter, because we want fighters to get away from what they’re doing. In that situation, we want (to say), ‘Chris Weidman, put your knee to the ground. Use your hands to defend yourself. That’s what they’re there for.’”
McCarthy är kritisk till hur Weidman försökte använda sina händer:
“If you’re on your feet and you wanted to make yourself grounded by putting your hands down, you would have to put both hands, palms down or fist down baring weight to make yourself grounded,” fortsatte McCarthy. “So what I’m telling you is, ‘Don’t ever (expletive) do that.’
“Only if you fall to that point, that’s the only time I want to see that.We did that in putting that rule in place because we didn’t want someone that was hurt falling forward, and have a guy be able to come up and soccer kick or punt them to the face.
“The rule has been working beautifully everywhere. It’s hard for athletic commission people to understand, because how many fights do they do? But I do fights every week, multiple times a week, everywhere. And it’s been freaking awesome. We’ve gotten guys to get away from doing this stupid thing of putting one hand down and thinking they’re safe. It’s changed what they’re doing.”
Förstår inte vad Weidman tänkte
McCarthy fortsatte säga att han tyckte att Weidman vann den första ronden men att han förlorade på sättet han betedde sig efter all kalabalik. ”Big” John tror att Weidmans träningskamrater och tränare kan ha spelat en stor roll:
“Chris is in a point where he doesn’t understand it the way he needs to understand it – and he puts his fingertips down to the ground,” sade McCarthy. “Fingertips do not make you grounded. And in the position that I was at, I couldn’t see his one hand, but I could see his hand with his fingertips. So I as soon as Dan called it, I said, ‘That was legal.’ And then Dan came over, I throw to him, and I say, ‘Dan, he said ‘Did you see it?” I said ‘Yes. It’s legal. What he did was legal. You need to tell Chris that if he stays with what he’s doing, he’s going to lose this fight by TKO.’
“Chris’ corner is telling him, ‘Chris, you have time. Chris, stay down.’ They’re milking something for their fighter, and I don’t blame them. And Chris is listening to them. Chris is as tough an individual as you’re going to get. He’s an incredible athlete, and he’s an incredible fighter, but he’s in the midst of this. He knows he got hit, but he has his corner telling him this. What’s he going to do? He’s going to start following what his corner is saying.
“So when they bring their ringside physician in and the physician talks to Chris, he says ‘What month is it?’ And Chris says ‘February.’ Now, does he do it on purpose, or does he do it because he really doesn’t know? We can’t say, but right away, when they came back and say, ‘Hey, that’s good,’ he said, ‘Hey, it’s April 8.’ He knew the date right away. All right, he’s trying to play a game with it a little bit, we’ll say. But he played himself into a loss. And that’s what other fighters need to look at too. ”
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Omslagsbild: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
