UK officials to boycott ACB over owner decision meddling

Mairbek Khasiev is a successful businessman in Chechnya, a passionate BJJ student with a purple belt, and owns both the Fight Club Berkut gym and the Absolute Championship Berkut. The MMA promotion has gone worldwide, with events this year so far in California and Austria, and the next three events scheduled in Poland, England, and Russia.

Unfortunately, Khasiev has yet to appreciate one of the fundamental pillars of successful sports – impartial officials. If you own a company you can appoint whoever you want to, but if you own a fight promotion, you can’t pick the winners.

ACB 52 on January 21, 2017 in Vienna, Austria, Khasiev overturned the result of the Patrick Kincl vs. Arbi Agujev main event from a TKO win for Kincl to a No Contest. Agujev fights out of Fight Club Berkut. And unanimous victory for Joao Luiz Nogueira over Shamil Nikaev was likewise changed to a No Contest.

In response, three UK-based referees and four judges from the event have honorably vowed a boycott. The include referees Marc Goddard and Leon Roberts, who are each in the running for ‘Referee of the Year’ at the Fighters Only World MMA Awards, ref, Dan Movahedi, plus judges David Lethaby, Ben Cartlidge, Mark Collett and Kev Capel. The group issued a statement to Fighters Only.

“Since ACB’s decision to overturn the results in their Vienna ACB 52 event between Patrick Kincl vs. Arbi Agujev and Joao Luis Nogueira vs Shamil Nikaev; the listed officials will be stepping down from working the planned ACB 54 event in Manchester on March 11th.

“Without any sign of judge corruption or incompetence, as a group of officials we feel it is a hugely dangerous and unprecedented step to change a unanimously agreed decision after the event. Also, in the main event, referee Neil Hall called a stop to the contest declaring Patrick Kincl the winner via TKO. Mr Hall made his assessment that Agujev was no longer intelligently defending himself in mount, and stopped the bout in the interest of fighter safety. This result was also later overturned to a no contest by the promotion.

“In the interest of supporting the Unified Rules of MMA and respecting the performing athletes, all the British staff listed above feel that officiating positions within the ACB organisation have become untenable.”

As you can see, the stoppage was neither indefensible nor usual. The ref made a judgement call sooner than many other refs might have, but it was not via bribery or a misunderstanding of the rules. So the ref decision stands.

Except of course in unregulated Europe, promoters can do whatever they want to, and did, issuing a statement afterward.

The result of the Shamil Nikaev – Joao Luiz Nogueira fight changed to NC (No contest). On Friday the ACB office received reports from the independent judicial experts from Russia and Europe. 12 of the 12 judges awarded their points in favor of Nikaev. They are the experts from Russia Viktor Korneev, Maria Makhmutova, Ahmed Baysultanov, Magomed Magomedov, Yuri Batman, the Polish judge Pawel Harasim and many others. As a result, the promotion has changed the decision of judges who served the ACB 52 tournament in Vienna. Beginning from the next ACB tournaments the judge panel will be radically revised.

Karim Zidan writing for BE noted that two of the experts cited, Yuri Batman or Magomed Magomedov have exactly no fights listed at MMA Decisions. Further, Zidan noted this is part of a pattern with the promotion owner. At ACB 43 Khasiev stripped flyweight champion Velimurad Alkhasov of his belt for allegedly feigning an injury. And at ACB 45 Khasiev overturned a decision win for Magomed Khamzaev, after determing that he had suffered a liver shot and was unable to continue, but had falsely convinced the ref it was an illegal groin shot, giving him time to recover.

This final one particularly appears as if the promoter could have been trying to do the right thing. Mairbek Khasiev may well be a well-intentioned man. But that is not how you do it.