White hopes Dober fight declared NC, CABMMA COO says it’s not possible

UFC Fight Night 62 in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday saw nine of twelve fights end inside the distance, but one has been called the worst ref call in UFC history. Drew Dober was working his way out of an arm-in guillotine from top Half Guard, when referee Eduardo Herdy inexplicably stopped the fight, saying the thought Dober was out.

Leandro Silva then did a happy dance around the cage.

The state of officiating in mixed martial arts is sometimes wildly uneven, but a ref who can’t tell that a moving fighter is in fact conscious is a whole new level of bad.

UFC president Dana White, who paid Dober his win money, is calling for the bout to be changed to a No Contest.

Supposedly, the referee is a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu,” said White on FOX Sports 1. “That was so far from a tap. We’re gonna pay him his win money. It just sucks. Not only was he not in danger at that point, he was about to take the dominant position and could possibly do damage and win the fight.

When the referee affects the outcome of a fight as badly as this guy did, it was horrible. It was one of the biggest referee screw-ups of all time.

“Everybody in this room and everybody on this planet knows that was bulls—. Hopefully that can be overturned into a no-contest and we do it fair.”

It should absolutely, positively be a no contest. Probably going to be tough to do because these athletic commissions, they protect their own. They’ll back up their refs, but this one is so blatant, so bad, I just don’t see how you don’t overturn this and make this a No Contest.

Brazil’s athletic commission, the Comissão Atlética Brasileira de MMA, says Dober has 15 days to appeal the decision. The precedent is that poor judge and ref decisions stand. Unless there was for example a math error, or collusion, ACs do not as a rule overturn decisions.

This one was so unfathomably terrible that a new precedent is in order. However, CABMMA COO Cristiano Sampaio spoke with Brazil’s Combate, and said the decision will likely stand.

“We can’t change the result,” said Sampaio as tanslated by Guilherme Cruz for MMAFighting.com. “There are three cases where the result can be changed: when the scorecards indicate a different result; when there’s collusion between judges, when they decide who’s going to win, something that happens outside (of Brazil) with betting; and when the failure in the interpretation of the referee that generates a different result than was to have been.

“That was an error of fac. The error of the rule is when there is a failure in the interpretation of the law. We have to review the fight, the referee’s position, which body signals the athlete had, indicating that he passed out or not. Some factors have to be analyzed. But it was not an error of the rule, and had nothing to do with the interpretation of the rule. Today, by the standard of the athletic commission protocol worldwide, there is no way we can change this result. But we have to sit down, discuss and review. Rule is one thing, his performance is another. They are distinct. That’s not the case here, so Leandro ‘Buscape’s’ win will likely be maintained.”

Herdy’s incompetence was not limited to a single fight on Saturday. Earlier in the evening, he also missed Jorge de Oliveira’s taps vs. Christos Giagos. He did finally notice however when the fighter passed out.

Never the less, Sampaio said Herdy would “absolutely” continue to ref, including for the UFC. He did say the ref would likely undergo a refresher course, presumably so that going forward he understands what a tapout is, and can discern an unconscious fighter from an active one.

In a statement to MMAJunkie, Sampaio was even more clear, saying that the decision would not be overturned.

Dober will still appeal.

“That’s unfortunate,” the fighter said to Cruz. “I was told last night that the head commissioner couldn’t comment on it until I appeal and he gets a chance to review the ‘error/mistake’ their referee made. I will still appeal. There is a lot of information coming out regarding this referee, pics of him training with Leandro’s team, the fact that he’s a black belt, which tells me that he knows that guillotine is nearly impossible to finish, all of these facts make his ‘mistake’ more and more suspicious. I wanted everyone to see it and know that this is a very serious issue that can’t be ignored. I would never be comfortable with him as a referee again.”

The UFC already gave Dober his win money. The only other thing they can do is hold a rematch, regardless of the final decision.