As the third man in the cage/ring, the referees duty is oversee the combatants, make sure they abide by the rules, and obviously break them up when a round ends or the bout is over.

Something that isn’t on their official list of duties is to fight, but sometimes they have are given no choice, so let’s take a look at the Top 3 MMA fighters VS Referee moments.

3) The ref gets taken down

After stepping to stop the contest via strikes, the referee found himself on the wrong end of a takedown as the TKO’d fighter proceeded to put him on the mat and even transitioning to mount before the corner men stepped in.

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2) Win by KO, then lose by submission

In this amateur bout in the Fight UK MMA promotion Leon Roberts got a chance to show off his grappling skills as he was forced snare Nathius Frederick in a rear naked choke when Nathius wouldn’t stop striking Ahmad Aswad who was already separated from consciousness.

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1) Things get heated between fighter and ref

After saving Iranian fighter Razi Jabbari from further punishment at the hands of Filipino fighter Honorio Banario at URCC 3, referee Joey Lepiten found himself getting in a heated exchange with Razi which resulted in a scuffle that went to the ground.

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Joey managed to get mount on Razi until corner men stepped in and subdued Razi and escorted him out of the ring.