ABC to improve judge and ref trainer certification
HATE MMA judging and reffing? ABC has a solution.
Poor judging, and to a somewhat lesser extent reffing, have long been widely cited as among the biggest problems facing mixed martial arts. At the 2016 Association of Boxing Commissions (ABC) annual convention, a several important rules clarifications and additions were voted in. The next agenda item was officials training.
If judges and referees are not always performing competently, the obvious solution is further training. However, the next question is, who does the training?
The ABC recognizes a number of official’s trainers, but there is no standardization. The father of MMA officials John McCarthy and current ABC president Mike Mazzulli spoke to the membership about the issues involved.
“We have to make sure everyone’s doing the same stuff,” said Mazzulli, as transcribed by Paul Gift for BE.
“We have people being trained for a couple hours saying, ‘I’m ABC certified,'” said McCarthy. “And there are people being trained for eight hours.”
Mazzulli said a meeting will be held to re-evaluate the ABC certification of officials’ trainers.
“The ABC was formed to protect the combative sport athlete and training officials is an important aspect of the regulation,” said Mazzulli to Gift.
McCarthy explained that currently recognized trainers will not be be grandfathered in.
“Everybody that wants to be a trainer, you get to come, we’re going to present a course for you, we’re going to give you the course, and you’re going to teach us the course,” said McCarthy. “When they pass our criteria to be an instructor, they can go and do ABC-certified training for everyone, but it’s all regulated under the ABC and they know what they have to do.”
Another part of the new process will be the assigning of stepped levels or “bands” for each official, depending upon number of fights worked, length of time being an official, number of regional title fights, number of world title fights, etc.
“That’s good for the commissions,” said McCarthy. “Because then they can look up Paul Gift, see your name, see what rating you have, how many fights you’ve done, what training you’ve taken.”
Amen