When all goes well, you don’t even notice the referee in mixed martial arts. Ideally, they are like ninjas. If you think of your three favorite MMA fights, you probably can’t remember who the ref was, and that is the way it should be.
However, sometimes things go wrong, and then what the ref does is impossible to miss.
Britain’s Leon Roberts works the world’s leading events, like the UFC, but does not yet enjoy the worldwide excellent reputation that John McCarthy, Herb Dean, or Mario Yamasaki do, at least not yet. Like McCarthy, Dean, and Yamasaki, Roberts is a long martial artist, and last year, he had to put his skills to use while reffing a fight.
Amateur lightweights Nathias Frederick was fighting Ahmed Aswad, at Fight UK: Last Man Standing in Leicester, England. With less than minute left in the very first round, Frederick connected with Aswad, dropping him.
It is one thing if a fighter who gets stunned acts irrational. But when the winning fighter loses control, it can be truly dangerous.
Roberts called break, and moved in. However, Frederick lost his mind, and tried to inflict further damage. The referee seized control of the situation, ripping Frederick off, putting in hooks, and applying a rear naked choke to bring the out of control fighter to his senses.
In a regulated bout, the government athletic commission would mete out a suspension for behavior like that seen below. Unfortunately, MMA in the UK remains unregulated. However, Frederick has not fought since, which is perhaps for the best.
Expect to see Leon Roberts officiating at a major event soon. Hopefully you don’t even notice him.
In an interview last year with MMA UK, Roberts talked about how he got started in martial arts.
“I was always a big kid and a lot of the time this meant that I avoided confrontation which was a good thing,” he began. “But I was always curious if I could handle myself in a proper fight against someone who knew what they were doing. I worked in a video store and when the UFC started getting released I used to hide them and bring them home at the end of a shift and watch over and over.
“I heard about a local fighter, Mark Weir, and so me and a friend went to one of his classes. The classes involved kickboxing, grappling, self defence, weapons and reality sparring. Over 20 years later, I still train with the same teacher. The days of the old gym wars are gone but my body still bears the scars of these encounters as I’m sure many old school martial artists will know all too well.”
The sport is lucky that Roberts’ interest was piqued now so long ago.
