At UFC Fight Night 95 Roy Nelson unceremoniously kicked referee John McCarthy after a perceived late stoppage.  This upset the heavyweight who believes he had to then inflict unnecessary damage on his opponent.

The UFC has previously expressed a zero tolerance stance on aggression towards referees when they cut Jason High after he pushed a referee with company president Dana White stating as follows:

“That Jason High kid got up and pushed a referee – he’s cut….I’m going to cut him…. You don’t ever, ever f——- touch a referee, ever. You’re done here. He’s been apologizing on Twitter, but he’s done.”

It is unclear why the UFC has not acted with equal swiftness against Nelson although issues of due process may explain inaction to date.

The UFC can take contractual action directly against Nelson for allegedly violating his promotional agreement with the company along with the UFC’s Fighter Conduct Policy.

Standard language in the UFC’s promotional agreements gives them broad language to terminate athletes who “materially breach, violate or are in default of any provision” of the contract.  These provisions are broad and include the following requirements:

“Fighter shall conduct himself in accordance with commonly accepted standards of decency, social conventions and morals, and Fighter will not commit any act or become involved in any situation or occurrence or make any statement which will reflect negatively upon or bring disrepute, contempt, scandal, ridicule, or disdain to Fighter, the Identity of Fighter or any of Fighter’s Affiliates, Zuffa or any of its officers, managers, members, employees or agents.  Fighter’s conduct shall not be such as to shock, insult or offend the public or any organized group therein, or reflect unfavorably upon an current or proposed arena, site hotel, sponsor or such sponsor’s advertising agency, or any network or station over which a Bout is to be broadcast.”

This requirement, as expanded by the UFC’s Fighter Conduct Policy, goes on to expressly prohibit “violent, threatening or harassing behavior“.

Nelson’s actions likely breach these previsions which provide the UFC with the unilateral ability to impose sanctions.  The punishment options include “fines, suspension and secession of service“.  The policy does spell out due process rights for athletes including an arbitration process.

If the UFC does take action Nelson can argue that if his conduct did not amount to a breach of regulatory requirements then his actions do not amount to a breach of this policy although this would be a hard sell.  Nelson can also point to seeming inconsistent application of this policy with actions such as Fabricio Werdum kicking an opposing trainer failing to trigger UFC discipline.

Ultimately in-cage misconduct is best governed by Athletic Commissions who are tasked with overseeing the integrity of the sports they regulate.  Once due process plays out with respect to any regulatory consequences the UFC would be on firmer ground to pull the trigger on in-house sanctions.  The Brazilian Athletic Commission has been slow to take action with the regulatory saga apparently now playing out before Brazil’s Superior Justice Court of Sport.  For everyone’s sake hopefully this conduct is addressed by the Brazilian Commission in a fair and transparent manner.

While fraudulent records where once the bedrock of unverifiable boasts among many martial artists, the modern era of mixed martial arts coupled with the internet and video evidence have largely done away with such nonsense.

Unfortunately, the practice apparently is not completely dead as a recent story illustrates.

Today it was announced that the Canadian MMA promotion TKO MMA uncovered “fraudulent declarations” by one of their fighters and this led the promotion to terminate the fighters contract.

The claims include the fighter inventing a promotion, creating fake fight posters and boasting about winning fights that never occurred. The boasts appear to have fooled  MMA website Sherdog who posted the padded record and today published this correction.  If true, yes, this is fraud, and yes such misrepresentations would in all likelihood justify a promotion in rescinding a contract.

TKO MMA published the following statement:

The TKO organization has been informed today of a very serious situation involving Mr. Christ Franck. He has committed an irreparable gesture and he, and his team, have been informed that his recently signed TKO contract has been terminated.

The false and fraudulent declarations made by Mr. Frank in regards to his last four fights in Africa (that in reality never took place) are a shame to our sport. This is a first in the history of MMA and we hope that this type of situation never happens again. Both Sherdog (.com) and Tapology (.com) have also been mislead as these events never took place.

Sherdog added the following:

The organization announced on Thursday that Christ Franck has been released after creating four fake events — where he fought and won — to improve his record from 5-7 to 9-7. The promotion, entitled African Warriors Championship, was fabricated, while Franck’s four opponents had either been inactive or invented. In order to bolster his resume, Franck had himself winning a pair of one-night tournaments in Togo that in actuality never happened.

The following poster, apparently a fake, was produced in the comments section of TKO MMA’s statement:

From time to time I am pleased to sponsor combat sports athletes or promotions either through this site or my personal injury lawfirm.

I am honoured to once again be a sponsor for Roxanne “the Happy Warrior” Modafferi as she headlines Invicta 19 on September 23, 2016 seeking the promotion’s flyweight championship.  The card can be viewed on UFC’s Fight Pass.

Ms. Modafferi exemplifies all the best qualities one hopes to see in a combative sports athlete and supporting her quest for a title was an easy choice.

War Roxy!

At UFC 203 Farbricio Werdum won a unanimous decision against Travis Browne in the co-main event.

A controversial moment arose in Round 1, however, when Browne injured his finger from a Werdum (legal) strike and basically called timeout with the referee intervening and allowing a stoppage of the action.  (I would provide a GIF of the incident but the UFC take very aggressive stances on use of their intellectual property on the internet).

Here’s a breakdown of the relevant factors in an appeal:

Under Ohio’s Rules a TKO stoppage is to occur in the two potentially applicable circumstances:

• Referee stops bout because contestant can no longer defend themselves
• When an injury as a result of a legal maneuver is severe enough to terminate the bout.

And verbal and physical tapouts also potentially come into play with the following definitions:

• (a) Tap out: when a contestant physically uses their hand(s) to indicate that they no longer wish to continue.
• (b) Verbal tap out:  when a contestant verbally announces to the referee that they do not wish to continue.

If Werdum ultimately lost a decision he could argue the referee misinterpreted the rules and appeal to overturn the result.

It is unclear what Rules Ohio uses in fighter appellate rights but the Nevada Rules, widely adopted in many jurisdictions, allow a contest to be overturned in the following three circumstances:

• The Commission determines that there was collusion affecting the result of the contest or exhibition;
• The compilation of the scorecards of the judges discloses an error which shows that the decision was given to the wrong unarmed combatant; or
• As the result of an error in interpreting a provision of this chapter, the referee has rendered an incorrect decision.

Allowing a fighter to call a time out after a legal strike is “an error in interpreting” the rules and a viable appeal can exist.

For an example of a fighter calling a timeout following a legal strike with the bout ending (correctly) in a TKO win you can watch Donald Cerrone v. John Makdessi at UFC 187.