NM commissioner responds to criticism of UFN 42 officiating

UFC Fight Night 42 saw an unprecedented level of regulatory controversy, including what many call the worst decision in the sport’s history, when native son Diego Sanchez was given a split decision over Ross Pearson. That was however far from the only thing that went wrong.

SWFight.com spoke with New Mexico Athletic Commission Tom King and discussed what happened.

Sanchez vs. Pearson

Pearson has filed an appeal on the decision. The NMAC rules specify the grounds on which a decision may be overturned, and it is highly unlikely that this decision will meet the standards.

NMAC statute 15.6.12.31, 15.6.12.31

A. A decision rendered at the termination of any bout is final and cannot be changed unless the commission determines that any one of the following situations has occurred.

(1) Collusion: That there was collusion affecting the results of any bout.

(2) Scoring error: That an error occurred in the compilation of the judges scorecards that would indicate that the official decision had been awarded to the wrong contestant.

(3) Violation of rules and regulations: That there was a clear violation of the rules and regulations governing the sanctioning of martial arts bouts that affected the result of the bout.

Ross was very professional about the way he presented the appeal to us, said King, who also understood why the decision could draw so much public interest. [The decision] was controversial. A hometown fighter won a split-decision.

I’m not sure it’ll be wise to do it (at an already scheduled meeting at 4 PM on Tuesday). We will do our due diligence to review the matter and go from there. We will take our time investigating this.

Rest assured that it will not take us six weeks to come to a decision on the Sanchez-Pearson matter.”

[The investigation] may very well last until next month, said King. There are a lot of hurdles. We’re probably going to look into getting a legal opinion.

A math error has been ruled out. A bad decision on the part of an official is not sufficient grounds to overturn a decision. The decision is likely to stand.

Jason High shoves ref Kevin Mulhall

High felt the fight with Rafael Dos Anjos was stopped prematurely, and shoved the ref.

That’s never happened in New Mexico before, said King. That just really doesn’t happen sport wide. Everyone knows you don’t touch officials. You just don’t.

This is expected to be addressed next Tuesday. High could face a six-month to a year suspension.

High has also been released by the UFC.

Pearson camp charges that no Jackson’s MMA fighters were drug tested

Ross was drug tested before the fight, which is perfectly normal, said Dean Amasinger, Ross Pearson’s manager. That’s absolutely fine, and all this stuff is supposed to be random. But when Ross came back from the drug test, he said to me, ‘I’ve seen the list; none of the Jackson guys are on the drug test list, or the New Mexican guys who are fighting on the card.’ And so I went and checked and that was the case.

King told SWFight.com that had had not heard the charge, and emphatically denied it.

We always, always test the two fighters involved in a main event, said King. That includes the fighter from Jackson’s [Rustam Khabilov] on Saturday. For someone to say that a fighter from that camp was not tested, is factually incorrect.

“The names (of the eight fighters tested) will come out in a few days and everyone will see who was tested.”

High’s remarks were confirmed by Jackson’s MMA head coach Greg Jackson.

I know for a fact that they tested Rustam because I was there when they tested him, said Jackson to MMAjunkie. I think they tested [Erik Perez] too, but I’m 100 percent sure they tested Rustam.

Bryan Caraway fish hook

Caraway beat Jackson’s-Winkeljohn’s fighter Erik Perez in the seconds round, but did a fishhook, which has been illegal since UFC 1. Caraway does not have a reputation for breaking rules, and apologized profusely, Greg Jackson said he gave him the benefit of the doubt.

King, confirmed that neither Perez nor his camp has filed a complaint.

We learned a lot from this show, said King. We have rules and procedures in place and we’re going to apply them to assist us in addressing the issues that have presented themselves.