Cat Zingano Officially Appeals Bizarre UFC 232 TKO Loss

Cat Zingano is officially attempting to have her UFC 232 TKO loss to Megan Anderson overturned.

The former UFC title challenger is aiming for her strange TKO defeat to be changed to a no contest. That’s according to her appeal obtained by MMAjunkie. Zingano lost her UFC women’s featherweight debut to Anderson when she was grazed by a big toe to the eye. The fight was called off when she could not see. Zingano initially appeared to have no serious injuries except for a lacerated eyelid.

She soon revealed that was not the case, however, as she is dealing with a myriad of serious ailments. Her lawyer Nathan Gable, cited “a legal opinion regarding the interpretation of the applicable rules.” The rules state pokes to the eye are obviously illegal but don’t specifically state that toes are a legal strike to the eye.

Rules Unclear?

In the appeal, Gable based their case on this so-called limiting language:

“The language of the Unified Rules regarding eye gouging is non-exhaustive and the examples listed, namely ‘eye gouging by means of fingers, chin, or elbow,’ are not meant as the only methods by which a foul may occur.

“First, the language is plainly open-ended, beginning with ‘eye gouging of any kind.…’ Had the Unified Rules intended to limit this foul to only the examples that followed and exclude toes from this foul, this rule would have been written with limiting language such as, ‘only eye gouging by means of fingers, chin, or elbow is illegal’ and omit the words ‘of any kind.’

Gable also raised the point of a thumb to the eye potentially being not an illegal strike simply because the rules state only fingers are illegal:

“Additionally, had this rule been meant to limit this foul to only the examples that followed and exclude toes, then by the same logic, a thumb to the eye would not be foul as the rule merely mentions fingers, not thumbs.”

Zingano confirmed her plan to appeal the loss in the days following December 29’s PPV from Inglewood. For her part, Anderson is willing to rematch Zingano if that’s what it takes. Anderson has mostly been concerned with the UFC’s lack of true female featherweight contenders.

You can bet Zingano wants the fight back too, but she has to wait for both her appeal and her eye to heal. When both of those things are settled, however, a rematch would be a solid booking in a division with no fights currently scheduled.