NAC upholds Faber vs. Rivera result
The eye-poke was caught clearly on tape, but the Nevada Athletic Commission did not see reason to overturn the official result.
Today the Nevada Athletic Commission held a meeting and one agenda item was an appeal of his loss to Urijah Faber by Francisco Rivera. In the bout, Faber accidentally poked Rivera in the eye, which went missed by the referee, and Faber went on to finish the bout by submission. Unfortunately the commission did not over turn the result of the fight:
Rivera appealed his Dec. 6 loss at today’s NSAC meeting. The basis of the appeal was an eye-poke by Faber (32-7 MMA, 8-3 UFC) that directly led to the bantamweight vet using a bulldog choke to finish the fight in the second round.
The eye-poke was caught clearly on tape, but the NSAC did not see reason to overturn the official result. Nevada Deputy Attorney General Chris Eccles said the rule cited by Rivera’s camp was not a rule upon which a fight could be overturned. The complaint cited a rule within the NSAC guidelines that would only apply if referee Mario Yamasaki misinterpreted a rule during the course of the bout.
Rather than a misinterpretation of a rule, it was a failure to see the foul.