Elite Athletes Ltd: UFC fight night 42 fight week blog part 3 "don't leave it to the judges"

We finished the warm up with some visualisation/meditation and Ross was oozing calm confidence and ready for action. We were watching the replay of the Dodson fight as we knew we were about to get the call.

You know when its your time as Burt Watson bellows out in his unmistakable husky, coarse voice "We rollin!!" We made our way from the changing rooms, which were in a separate building to the stadium. As we entered the stadium the energy form the crowd hit me like a wall. The crowd was buzzing and you could feel the excitement in the room. There was a small wait before we called through to just behind the curtain to make the walk to the cage. Ross chose the Fugees 'ready or not' as a walk out tune and it was appropriate in this hostile territory.

The crowd was mixed in terms of support for Ross but there was definitely a lot of boos. We said our goodbyes at the cage and waited for Diego to enter. The crowd went mad for him and the noise was deafening. At this point the corner team are behind the cage holding the banner. We are passing last bits of information to Ross and reminding him of key words that we have been emphasising all camp. When Diego entered the cage he ran around it and beat is chest like a mad man directing his focus the whole time at Ross. Ross just kept his cool and didn't let it faze him.

One of the key words or phrases we used to sum up our game plan was 'out class him'. We knew from watching tape on Diego and from his record that he was incredibly difficult to finish and getting into a dog fight with him or trying to KO him almost always favoured his style. The plan was to use a lot of movement and feints to make him throw and catch him on the counter. Doubling up with the jab was also important offensively. We also wanted to work his body with the right kick, right hand and right knee to slow him down as hitting him in the head can often have little or no effect. Another key point was to move after combinations and use angles when he came forward.

The fight went pretty much how we wanted it to. Ross kept to the game plan to the letter and found his range early in the first round. He landed a solid knee in the very first exchange and Diego grimaced a bit and you could see right away that Ross had earned his respect. He also landed a great left high kick that rocked Diego and a left hand that Jon Anik described as buckling Diego.

We came into the corner at the end of the round feeling confident that Ross had done enough to comfortably win the round. When cornering I will always stay conservative on the success of my fighters performance so any close round I will give to the opponent so that we don't get complacent. I wont however lie if the fighter has clearly won the round so that is what we told him. Eric and I both gave a couple of instructions and sent him into the next round feeling confident we were taking control of the fight.

The second was an even more dominant round and Ross landed a stiff right hand that dropped Diego and also took him down after catching a kick. Ross continued to attack the body and landed some nice right body kicks and also a few right hands to the body. Ross was looking relaxed and sharp and moving so well that Diego was struggling to hit him with anything clean. Again we were sure that Ross had won the round so told him he was doing really well but just gave a couple of pointers to tighten things up.

The third round was again dominant by Ross but not as dominant as the second but more so than the first. There were a few flurries from Diego but if you watch them he didn't land with anything clean and was countered with some tight inside shots. On the outside Ross was landing the cleaner shots, especially the switch right hook. The fight ended and Eric and I celebrated a job well done and walked into the cage. Joe Silva came into the ring and congratulated us and there was a feeling that everyone in the cage knew the result. Before the announcement we shook hands with the other corner team and they congratulated Ross on his performance and told us how well he did. Everyone in there thought that Ross had won.

When the announcement came and Bruce Buffer said "30-27 Pearson", I thought 'hold on a minute, when they say a name after the score that means its a split decision'. I was baffled but thought maybe I was wrong and he was going to say "and the other judges scored it 29-28 Pearson" unfortunately he didn't. He then read out the next score which was "30-27 Sanchez" and I knew then that we had lost the fight. I couldn't hold back the shock and didn't know what to do. Eric just laughed and didn't know what else to do. Ross was shocked and looked at me as if it say 'are they serious?'

We left the cage and walked back to the waiting area. Ross was checked over by the Doctor and given the all clear. No medical suspension. Diego wasn't so lucky and was given a medical suspension. Its funny that the guy that loses the fight gets the all clear and the one that wins gets a medical suspension.

We went back to the changing room and I immediately asked to speak to a commissioner. We wanted to ask about the appeal/complaint procedure. Eventually I got to speak to the vice president of the commission and explained our problem. I also wanted to see the score cards from the judges. They presented me with the summary of the score cards, which is all three judges score cards on one piece of paper but they wouldn't show me the individual score cards of the judges. I wanted to see if there had been a mistake and they had written down the wrong name... stranger things had happened.

We then wrote an appeal highlighting what we had a problem with and why. We cited evidence form fightmetric.com and also the media scores from mmadecisions.com. The commissioner assured me that they were taking the appeal very seriously and that there would be a full investigation into the result. When I asked her what a full investigation meant she gave me a politician type answer and was pretty vague. However she unofficially sympathised with us and said she is going to do her best to get to the bottom of the situation.

Alarm bells should have been ringing early though as when Ross was asked to do a drug test and saw the list of fighters, non of the fighters from New Mexico were on the list except for the main event. I raised my concerns with Burt Watson and he said he would look into but at that stage of the game it was a bit too late. In my experience drug tests are random but fight by fight not individual fighters. Things maybe different in New Mexico but it did seem a little convenient and not very random that they weren't tested.

While back in the changing rooms the coaches and fighters from other camps were coming to commiserate us and they all said we should have won the fight easily. The legendary coach from ATT Liborio said "at least you'll be remembered for being involved in the worst robbery ever in the UFC" but I think we took little solace from that. The UFC staff didn't know where to look and almost seemed embarrassed. They are supposed to stay impartial so I could tell it was awkward for them and they were either uncomfortably smiling at us or avoiding eye contact.

Media reports have been saying that this is possibly one of the worst decisions in UFC history and I would have to agree. When looking back at some of the other controversial decisions in recent history like Machida vs Davis, GSP vs Hendricks or Jones vs Gustafson there can be arguments made either side due to take downs, control, strikes landed etc however in this situation I haven't heard one convincing argument as to why Sanchez won. Ross out struck him every round, got a take down, knocked him down twice (once if you are a Diego fan) and controlled the pace of the fight.

The press conference was mostly about the decision and Diego said he won the fight and I guess what else is he supposed to say. Ross stayed humble as ever and asked for a rematch to set things straight, Diego didn't exactly jump at the opportunity and I don't blame him. One of Diego's coaches was sat in front of me at the press conference and I asked him what he thought and he said he thought Diego won rounds 1 and 3. I brought up the fact that he wasn't saying that in the cage and we got in a bit of an argument but I dropped it as I knew nothing would come of it and what was he supposed to say?

We went back to the hotel and Kenny Florian and Jon Anik where stood in the entrance. We had already been sent a clip of the commentary where Kenny had shown Ross his support so we thanked him for that. Both Kenny and Jon didn't know what to say to Ross and we were laughing about how ridiculous it was. Kenny said to Ross "telling you you didn't win that fight is like telling you your shirt isn't black" (luckily
Ross's shirt was black)

The phrase 'don't leave it to the judges' kept coming up on my twitter feed and facebook page and its a term that used all to often in MMA. I use it now with sarcasm because it really isn't acceptable. In no other sport, except for boxing (which is basically the same problem because the commissions are the same) would we tolerate such terrible and incompetent officiating. If that it was the NBA or football there would be up roar and the problem fixed.

Imagine someone saying to you, 'don't get sick because Doctors will kill you'. You'd be fair in thinking that was ridiculous and unfair and that Doctors should do the job they have been trained to do and you should be able to trust that they will.

The UFC has to take some responsibility for it and not just keep the 'don't leave it to the judges' line. It is seriously hurting the legitimacy of the sport. We are already fighting for main stream recognition as a sport and when farcical things like this happens we will start being pushed into the entertainment sector with WWE rather than a legitimate sport. It also must affect things like gambling as you would be scared to bet on things that you have no way of knowing if you are getting a fair crack. People that bet on Ross to win on Saturday night must be feeling fairly unhappy right now.

The people worst effected are the fighters. The reason scoring is in place is to fairly show a winner when fights aren't finished. Expecting or insisting that a fighter should finish every fight is ignorant and most likely the opinion of someone who has never fought before. When two fighters are evenly matched it is so difficult to finish fights. Even when they are out classed like Ross did to Diego it is still incredibly difficult to finish a guy that tough.We are then left in the hands of the judges and we can hope to get a fair representation of the fight.

Ross was only awarded half of his pay (at the time I write this) and it seems incredibly unfair that the incompetence or corruption of two judges has resulted in Ross halving is earnings. Imagine someone's mistake at your work place meant that you lost half of your wages. I think you'd be pretty unhappy.

It's not only a question of money as Ross's career has now been affected. We were hoping for a ranked opponent after this fight to push Ross into the top 10. He has now been set back and can only hope that the UFC don't send him backwards with regards to level of opponent and take into account the performance that he put in on Saturday night.

Moving forward something has to be done. I'm not sure on a definite solution but the UFC must be proactive in fixing the problem. A good place to start would be judges training. The UFC could set up training courses in every area/city/country they visit. The course could be developed by the current UFC referees and senior judges and staff. During fight week judges on the commissions roster could attend a two day course going over techniques and positions and their potential weighting in a fight and also do fight analysis to help develop their skills.This would help to standardise the judging across the UFC in all of it's regions. This wouldn't be an overnight change but I don't think there is one. Over time the standard would rise and hopefully we would see less and less decisions like the one we saw on Saturday night.

Another option could be to bring in electronic scoring as either the 3rd judge or as an extra judge. You could also up the judges to 5 to try and get a better representation of the fight.

At this point we are still awaiting the news from our appeal and also from Dana and the other officials at the UFC but whether the decision is overturned or we get a rematch Ross is happy and healthy and we will take this in our stride and keep pushing forward until we win that belt.