Dana White Criticizes Referee Chris Tognoni Following Controversial Finish
UFC president, Dana White commented on another officiating error from referee, Chris Tognoni – following last night’s UFC Fight Night Vegas 11 event at the UFC Apex facility in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Tognoni, who’s become a staple of these UFC Vegas events ever since May – made another error during his time in the Octagon last night, in a preliminary bout between Jessica-Rose Clark, and Sarah Alpar. Landing a massive barrage at the fence, Clark began searching for the finish in the final round, scoring a huge knee – which appeared to break Alpar’s nose.
With Alpar slummping as a result of the strike, yet to touch the Octagon canvas, referee Tognoni stepped in, calling for a replay to see if Alpar was deemed a downed fighter, which would’ve rendered the knee an illegal blow. Instead of ruling the fight a knockout win in favour of Clark – Tognoni allowed Alpar to continue before Clark finally forced the issue later in the round.
This latest error follows a light heavyweight pairing between Ed Herman and Mike Rodriguez at UFC Vegas 10 last weekend. Landing a kick to the body, Rodriguez began teeing off on Herman, with Tognoni claiming the strike was an inadvertent groin strike, with the latter using the separation time to recover. The following round with the fight somehow restarted, Herman rallied and submitted Rodriguez with a kimura – after taking some more considerable punishment at the fence.
Speaking at last night’s post-fight press conference, White described the situation as “horrible” – detailing how the fight should’ve been called after the initial barrage of knees from Aussie native, Clark.
“It’s a horrible situation,” White said. “The fight should’ve been over. That fight should’ve been over just like last week. She got finished. She got stopped. If you have to jump in and look at her and do anything – her nose was broken. That was a finish. That should’ve been a finish.“
“I know Marc Ratner is all over this. It’s just something that needs to be worked out. When you get stopped, and these kids are so tough and durable, That poor little girl fought her ass off again after she was able to continue. This just needs to be fixed. They gotta figure this out” (H/T MMA Junkie)
