http://mmajunkie.com/news/18244/stephan-bonnar-loses-appeal-looks-forward-to-rematch-with-krzysztof-soszynski.mma

Stephan Bonnar lost an appeal to change the result of his UFC 110 loss to Krzystztof Soszynski.

The Combat Sports Authority of New South Wales, which was tasked with regulating the February event in Sydeny, Australia, ruled this past Tuesday that the official result ruling the fight a TKO win in favor of Soszynski stands.

“A review was held ... and the Combat Sports Authority of NSW did not seek to interfere with the referee’s decision,” wrote Craig Waller, Executive Director of the Combat Sports Authority of New South Wales, in an email sent to MMAjunkie.com (http://www.mmajunkie.com) late Tuesday night.

I understand the CSA of NSW not wanting to interfere with the referee’s call, however if a referee clearly (as video proves) made the wrong decision, should they not review and change the decision? Are they going the same way as soccer, who are reluctant to use video in ruling on decisions, preferring to have the human error factor involved.

The Nevada Athletic Commission has implemented and recently used video replays at the venue.

Thoughts, as not that we have a regulating body appeals will be a lot more common thing in Australian MMA.

Does ref John sharp acknowledge after viewing the replay that he got it wrong?

They fucked up and got that wrong bog time!!

Bon - 10 March 2010 03:42 PM

They fucked up and got that wrong bog time!!

+1

Not a great first impression of the CSA at work - I wonder if we can obtain any offcial Minutes kept from the meeting from Stefan or Richard…if you guys are reading this, do you keep public minutes of your meetings?

No one from MMA Officials Australia (Steve, John, etc…) have admitted any mistake in the fight was made & Steve vehemently denies John did anything wrong in that fight, or that the botched outcome of the fight was the referee’s fault. Steve seemed willing to debate that with me till we were blue in the face over in the UFC 110 thread.

However, that may be simply down to “due diligence” from a business legal point of view, as MMAOA are a business entity & not just registered officials within the NSW CSA. Therefore a professional failure from them which caused a financial loss to a professional athlete (Bonnar) could open them up to financial liability if any acknowledgment is made of mistakes on their behalf. That’s just a possibility though & I would definitely hope that nothing negative comes of this poor outcome for Bonner, to the MMAOA company. MMAOA so far seem to operate under a very professional set of guidelines and have a lot to offer the MMA industry as a whole, but this could serve to highlight the downside to setting up and running a business to provide a service that the government regulates and provides, themselves.

My personal hope is that at least behind closed doors, John is shown the basic errors made & allowed further training so he can get better and become a regular MMA ref/official at a high level. As far as the decision made by the NSW CSA, i think it was always going to be unlikely that they reversed any decision made by the ref, as doing so would have opened up the door to scrutiny of them as an authority/body right off the bat. Why the video replay system was not utilised in the first place was completely beyond me & why it hasn’t been used since in the review system is equivalent to sticking their heads in the sand and singing lullaby’s to themselves, in the vein hope of pretending like nothing happened. It’s a terrible decision for both Stephan Bonnar and the sport as a whole. It’s bad enough that fighters cant leave the result of the fight in the hands of the judges due to incompetence, but in the last number of years the ref’s have now been almost as much of a hindrance to the fighters in the cage & now we cant even rely on the administrators of the sport to use a bit of common sense to make the right decisions.

I can understand mistakes made in real time where split second decisions are made based on what you see, but how does a commission which has all the time in the world and replays in slow motion fron a variety of angles get it wrong???

If you take Perceval’s knowledge and skills away, which he has invested a lot of his own time and money in gaining, what do the CSA actually offer the sport? I know Justin adopted the rules from the NSAC for XFC and there was no CSA around… Seems like we have guys who have pioneered the way for some paper pushers.

The CSA do have a long way to go, before they become recognised in the combat sports community as being worth their weight, but at least they are a sanctioning body and recognize the legitimacy of MMA. That’s a starting point at least

As of right now though, the administrative face-palms come thick and fast as soon as you start having even basic contact or dealings with them. A quick visit to their website (http://www.dsr.nsw.gov.au/aboutus/industry_combat.asp) at the moment shows they regulate “Ultimate Fighting”, “Cage Fighting” and “Mixed Martial Arts” as three separate sports (Sweet Jesus, who was the genius behind THAT decision?).

LOL! Really does make them look like a bunch of paper pushers..

I thought steve acknowledged the decision was incorrect after the replays but was stating ref John sharp made his decisions during real time which is certainly fair enough but doesn’t a review allow video replays to change the final appeals outcome?

Would make sense to utilize all available resources wouldn’t it?

Sucks for Bonnar.

It is all well and good to release a statement saying they are upholding the original decision but how about providing the reasoning behind it? As a punter I believe the role of governing bodies is to keep things above the board, ensure safety and oversee the sport so it is run in a fair manner.

After watching a replay there is no way you could come to the conclusion the cut and stoppage resulted from a legal strike. Therefore I can only think the CSA is standing by the decision as they do not take video footage into account and only assess whether the referee’s ruling was reasonable at the time it was made regardless of what comes about after?

To me the CSA’s credibility is hurt much more by this decision than it would be by overturning a mistake that could easily be made in the heat of the moment. Unless it is just a means of protecting themselves from legal issues?

Blunt Force Banana Kick - 11 March 2010 03:22 AM

As a punter I believe the role of governing bodies is to keep things above the board, ensure safety and oversee the sport so it is run in a fair manner.

The result that is official on the night is what books use to grade the fight and it is final, even if the decision is overturned at a later date.

Those who bet Bonnar were stiffed out of a draw, or possibly a win (unlikely IMO). Bad beats are part of gambling though… tell me how you’d feel with money on Jon Jones Vs Mat Hamill when not only did he win, he beat the bejesus out of him and should have got a TKO stoppage in what was an incredibly dominant performance… I know a guy who took a $13k downswing from that fight - he had a massive paying parlay with 2 legs remaining (Jones and Penn over Sanchez) and $5-6k on Jones straight up.

They definitely made the wrong call, although it isn’t as bad as it seems because Christoff was winning that fight anyway and they are granted a rematch.

Juzie - 11 March 2010 10:30 AM

They definitely made the wrong call, although it isn’t as bad as it seems because Christoff was winning that fight anyway and they are granted a rematch.

welcome to the forum, krzysztof

jkes

Still, if their processes aren’t open and subject to public scrutiny, what use is the Authority?

Without public oversight they’re useless - as a government body, where is the open engagement with the community?

adambjjoz - 10 March 2010 05:02 PM

No one from MMA Officials Australia (Steve, John, etc…) have admitted any mistake in the fight was made & Steve vehemently denies John did anything wrong in that fight, or that the botched outcome of the fight was the referee’s fault. Steve seemed willing to debate that with me till we were blue in the face over in the UFC 110 thread.

However, that may be simply down to “due diligence” from a business legal point of view, as MMAOA are a business entity & not just registered officials within the NSW CSA. Therefore a professional failure from them which caused a financial loss to a professional athlete (Bonnar) could open them up to financial liability if any acknowledgment is made of mistakes on their behalf. That’s just a possibility though & I would definitely hope that nothing negative comes of this poor outcome for Bonner, to the MMAOA company. MMAOA so far seem to operate under a very professional set of guidelines and have a lot to offer the MMA industry as a whole, but this could serve to highlight the downside to setting up and running a business to provide a service that the government regulates and provides, themselves.

My personal hope is that at least behind closed doors, John is shown the basic errors made & allowed further training so he can get better and become a regular MMA ref/official at a high level. As far as the decision made by the NSW CSA, i think it was always going to be unlikely that they reversed any decision made by the ref, as doing so would have opened up the door to scrutiny of them as an authority/body right off the bat. Why the video replay system was not utilised in the first place was completely beyond me & why it hasn’t been used since in the review system is equivalent to sticking their heads in the sand and singing lullaby’s to themselves, in the vein hope of pretending like nothing happened. It’s a terrible decision for both Stephan Bonnar and the sport as a whole. It’s bad enough that fighters cant leave the result of the fight in the hands of the judges due to incompetence, but in the last number of years the ref’s have now been almost as much of a hindrance to the fighters in the cage & now we cant even rely on the administrators of the sport to use a bit of common sense to make the right decisions.

Hey Adam,
What is up with you mate, I explained what John saw and made a point that people should consider his position in the fight which would justify the reason he thought it was an elbow that cut Bonnar, I never denied that Bonnar’s cut was from a head clash. I think it was 3 different angles all in slow motion that you saw the clash and one of those angles is very close to Johns position which clearly shows a forearm landing milliseconds after the head clash and in exactly the same spot of Bonnars cut. I also told you that we would review the fights and discuss all aspects of our performance, we do after every event.
 
I also explained that Marc Ratner told us in a meeting after the event that the UFC were working on implementing a system to review video footage in such instances but is was not available at that stage.

So let me ask you what would you have done in Johns situation with the Doctor calling a stop to the fight? 
At what stage did you know that it was a head clash that cut Bonnars head? Was it when Joe Rogan called it a punch that cut him? or after the numerous slow motion replays?

We have been working extremely hard to bring a set of guidelines and standards to MMA in NSW with no help from anyone, Government or other. I formed the MMAOA so we could offer promoters a group of well trained professional officials. I pushed for legislation in NSW and have offered my experience and advice to the Government if ever needed. I started the MMAOA when MMA was self regulated in NSW in hope that we could bring legitimacy to the sport and to try and educate promoters and fighters that standards and guidelines are necessary in order to protect the fighters.

Both John and I are registered referees for the NSW Goverment, the MMAOA was not approached or hired by the UFC, the NSW Government asked if I could suggest registered people with experience who would work as referees, judges, inspectors and a timekeeper, so of course I suggested the people who have the most experience and expertise who have worked with me on the largest shows in Australia. Whats the downfall in that? are you saying we did not perform our roles and duties adequately? because the UFC seem to think we did a good job.

Are you able to suggest any other MMA referees with more experience or the expertise then those in the MMAOA ?

As terrible as it is that Stephan Bonnar’s appeal did not get the loss overturn and it is, I feel that there are many larger issues which could impact negatively on the sport of MMA in Australia and these need to be addressed urgently. 
If you don’t mind me asking who are you and what is your experience in the MMA field? You can answer by private message if you don’t want others to know.
Steve Perceval