New contender for worst referee ever

Being a fight referee is the most thankless job in mixed martial arts. No one ever thought their favorite fighter won due to a ref, and countless fans blame the ref for loss on any given Saturday.

No ref in MMA has withstood as much criticism as has Steve Mazzagatti.

Mazzagatti, as a referee? UFC President Dana White said in 2009. This f***ing guy shouldn’t even be watching MMA on TV, let alone refereeing it. I think he’s the worst ref in the history of any fight business, ever. He’s horrible. We don’t pick the refs. The athletic commission does. Those guys are picked by the government. It’s not that I don’t like him, he’s a nice guy. He’s an absolute nice guy, he has no business whatsoever being anywhere near mixed martial arts.

However, the Mayweather vs. Ortiz fight led White, a huge boxing fan, to declare via twitter that Mazzagatti no longer holds that distinction in his mind. The mantle has been taken by boxing referee Joe Cortez.

Was that NUTS or what!?!? tweeted White. Dirty from both fighters and the most HORRIBLE refereeing I have EVER seen in boxing or anywhere else!

However, Steve Mazzagatti and Joe Cortez are both extremely experienced officials. They are not even remotely close to the worst referee of all time.

One of the latest entries took place in Januar and was brought to our attention by the excellent BJJee.com. It happened at the Underground Battle Mixed Martial Arts Championship event UGB13: Foreign Invasion, at Makati Coliseum, in Manila, Philippines. Nice name guys.

Pakistan’s Ahmed Mujtaba sunk a rear naked choke on Rodian Menchavez. The purpose of a choke is to render the opponent unconscious. Unconscious people don’t move, never mind tap. This is not a difficult concept to grasp, but the referee spent a terrifyingly long period of time waiting for the unconscious fighter to tap.

It is not uncommon at all for a fighter to get caught in a choke, and for it to be ambiguous if he or she is out or not. What the ref does is ask the fighter to indicate through movement, even a thumbs up, that things are okay. Darting around looking for a tap won’t work, most unfortunately.

However, the above ref is John McCarty compared to the ref who in Murat ‘Lord Pitbull’ Kazgan’s MMA debut literally didn’t know that a tap means one fighter is quitting.

And that was just a choke. Soccer kicks are banned due to the danger, but at the Soccer Kick Invitational, the referee invited a soccer kick on a downed opponent!!?!