If Keith Kizer has his way, Dan Miragliotta and Steve Mazzagatti’s ability to fuck up fights by not paying attention could be severely limited by the year’s end. The Nevada State Athletic Commission Executive Director revealed yesterday on the GoodSports radio show that his commission is trying to figure out how an instant replay system could be incorporated into MMA, to be used only when a potentially illegal blow leads to the immediate end of a match (i.e., Mostapha Al Turk getting eye-poked by Mirko Cro Cop, and Anthony Johnson’s repeated pokes by Kevin Burns). As Kizer explained:

“Actually it was [UFC VP Marc Ratner’s] idea years ago, and it just never went anywhere — mainly because of technology — but now I think we’re finally there…The problem with instant replay is, of course, even in football once the next play starts you can’t go back and review something. It’s the same with boxing or MMA. You can’t go back at the end of the round and look at whether something happened, say, one minute into the round. Had the ref called it differently, the rest of the round might have happened differently. Once there’s some action in that contest, you can’t go back…

Let’s say the referee doesn’t stop it and the knee was down and the guy got kneed in the head but the fight continued and the referee didn’t stop it, there’s nothing you can do about that now because the continuation. It would only be those situations where there’s an immediate stoppage of the fight and the ref wants to know was it an illegal blow, an intentional foul or an accidental foul that immediately stopped the fight. Then it would still be [the referee’s] discretion. It wouldn’t be up to the commission. It wouldn’t be the corner. It wouldn’t be the promoter. It would be the referee’s decision, just like in football. If he looks at it and he can’t tell, you’ve got to go with the original call…I would think you could see [instant replay] as early as the end of the year if the commission agrees to make that regulatory change.”

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