Dana White had his say on the controversy surrounding Gegard Mousasi’s TKO victory over former champ Chris Weidman.
Referee Dan Miragliotta originally deemed Mousasi had illegally kneed a downed opponent only for the officials outside the cage to confirm the knee strikes were infact legal.
By this time Weidman was in a 5 min recovery period for an illegal strike and being checked by doctors who then decided he was unfit to continue.
Confusion all round.
Last year the strikes would have been illegal but the new rules have it different, a fighter is now not considered to be a downed opponent unless he has both hands touching the canvas, which the video replays seemed to show was not the case.
Here’s what White said at the post fight press conference.
“The commission didn’t explain anything to me but basically, the referee made a mistake”, White said. “Weidman was in a very unfortunate position where he was told he has five minutes so he’s laying on the ground and at the end the doctor say, ‘I can’t let this guy continue’.
“Here’s the thing: you gotta be on your toes and you gotta be ready to go. Many times, even in great states like Nevada, not only are you battling your opponent, you’re battling the ref and the judges and anybody else who has any type of power in the fight. If you ask yourself if Weidman could have come back from that… He said, ‘I’d been in worse positions than that’ but it looked like he was in a real bad position right there and that’s the way the fight was going to go, but who knows?”
Subscribe
