UFC president Dana White is very rarely shy to make public his views on the referees and judges assigned to his events by the local commission for whatever location they are staged, but he has kicked it up a gear with an attack on UFC referee Mario Yamasaki in the wake of UFC Fight Night 112 in Oklahoma on Sunday night.
Yamasaki is a referee that irks many MMA fans and has a history of controversial stoppages and decisions that have made Dana White very angry in the past, but after Kevin Lee defeated Michael Chiesa in the first round of Sunday's main event, he went in too footed.
Lee won via submission after he sunk in what looked to be a very deep rear naked choke as the opening round neared it's conclusion, but Chiesa neither tapped or lost consciousness. It looked inevitable, but Yamasaki jumped in too early and stopped the fight, much to the disbelief of Chiesa who was adamant that he was fighting out of the choke, and was caught on camera audibly claiming that the ref "should be fuckin' fired".
But not everybody felt the same way. It certainly was in deep, and it looked as though it were a matter of seconds before Chiesa went to sleep.
Although even popular ref Big John McCarthy publicly came to the defense of Yamasaki, Dana White did the opposite, and attacked him for ruining the spectacle, and for doing that love-heart gesture thing at the start of the fight.
Mario Mazzagatti does it again!!! This guy is more concerned with doing this dumb ass heart bullshit then Ref'n the fight!!! Steals a great moment from Lee or let Mike fight it or tap. Nobody gives a shit that u can make a heart with ur hands like a 12 year old girl they want u to pay attention to what's going on in the fight and do ur job.
Gareth Bale and Angel Di Maria will be surely unimpressed with White's view that it's something a 12-year-old girl would do, but an MMA referee doing it before every fight he officiates is something that has confused people before.
As for the call itself, as we mentioned earlier Big Jon McCarthy thought it was a fair stoppage, but you could see from Chiesa's immediate reaction that he was unimpressed.
What is unfortunate is that @MoTownPhenom was booed for a phenomenal performance. That choke was TIGHT & was not being defended #AskBJM https://t.co/9OHHeNyuhQ
— Big John McCarthy (@JohnMcCarthyMMA) June 26, 2017
While it looked very much like the fight was over, and Yamasaki prevented Chiesa from losing consciousness, White is having none of it.
He even threw another referee under the bus in Steve Mazzagatti by comparing Yamasaki to him, but that is nothing knew as the UFC president has made it known that he dislikes both officials greatly. And, it must be said, he is not alone in that opinion.
Kevin Lee has said that he is open to the idea of a rematch with Michael Chiesa, so these two will likely run it back in the near future, you'd just hope that Herb Dean is in charge of that one.
