Smile’n Sam Alvey has only one problem with Marc Goddard
“He’s a great referee for everyone but me. That’s what I determined.”
Alvey: Just Trying to not be Mad at Marc Goddard Anymore
By Daniel Vreeland
There has never been a calendar year where Sam Alvey has fought less than 3 times, and one year (2010) he fought 8 times. So it’s a little weird to look to his record and see that Sam Alvey hasn’t fought in over five months. But the reason for the layoff has nothing to do with an injury or an improvement in his game that he’s been working on – it’s simply a mental state.
I was actually just trying to not be mad at Marc Goddard anymore, Alvey said of his time off in an interview with The Top Turtle Podcast. I didn’t want to go into camp pissed off.
That anger stems from back-to-back fights in which Alvey said he was wronged by the top British referee. The first one took place back in Brazil against Rogerio Nogueira. In that fight, Alvey claims that there was not any case for stopping the fight.
Absolutely not, Alvey said. I was rocked and that’s not against the rules in MMA.
Alvey said that there was plenty of evidence as to why the fight should have kept rolling.
If you look I was shooting a takedown, I got the takedown and they stopped it, Alvey explained. If I was that badly damaged, why would I have gotten a takedown against one of the best grapplers in MMA?
Although with his trademark humor, Alvey did shoulder some of the blame for the first go-round with Goddard.
I shouldn’t have gotten punched, Alvey joked. My bad – I’ll work on that for this next one.
His issues with Goddard only compounded from there. After getting over the Lil’ Nog fight, Alvey stepped in with Jimmy Crute in Australia. When he saw that Goddard was assigned to the fight, he had a quick chat with him before it all.
After the Nogueira fight, before the Crute fight, I said ‘hey last time it was stopped a little early. I’m a guy who can get hit, Alvey said. [Goddard] said ‘if you feel like you’re hurt but not in trouble just put your thumb up and it’ll be all good.
Although those were the verbal instructions, Alvey said they were overlooked when push came to punch in the face.
I was working on improving my position in the Crute fight and I put my thumb up, Alvey said. Then he stopped it anyways.
Although it took him some time to get over these losses, he’s no longer mad at Marc Goddard. In fact, he feels that Goddard is a pretty good referee, with one small caveat.
He’s a great referee for everyone but me, he said. That’s what I determined.
Alvey steps back into the cage this Saturday at UFC on ESPN 4 in San Antonio vs. Klidson Abreu, with a referee to be determined.
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Author Daniel Vreeland is a co-founder of the Top Turtle Podcast, and a brown belt in Jiu-Jitsu at New England Submission Fighting in Amherst, Massachusetts.
