Comments on: Anthony Johnson loses appeal

By: Sergio Hernandez

Sergio Hernandez — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:47:10 +0000

“Under UFC rules, Open Palm Strikes are illegal.”

Nowhere in the UFC rules does it state that.

http://www.ufc.com/index.cfm?fa=LearnUFC.Rules

By: Grappo

Grappo — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 01:38:27 +0000

I agree that Burns shouldn’t have been allowed to fight if he can’t close his hand, and every jab is a potential eye poke. Sucks for Johnson.

By: matt

matt — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 20:58:02 +0000

Under UFC rules, Open Palm Strikes are illegal.

By: Rich S.

Rich S. — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:37:10 +0000

ok, to all these people that continue to mention palm strikes being illegal? does that include palm strikes on the ground? if so, they’re TOTALLY LEGAL..

i don’t know the ruling on a standing palm strike, but palm strikes from the guard are VERY common..

By: Jackyl

Jackyl — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:32:20 +0000

That is pretty bad. I understand the rules for overturning but there was a blatant and repeated rules violation. The Mazz even warned Burns during the break in between rounds. All of a sudden he is out of position to make the call? When all of us and everyone in the arena saw Burns’ finger disappear to his first knuckle into Johnson’s eye. It sure wasn’t a TKO. So the moral of the story is if you are losing a fight you go for an illegal blow and hope the ref rules a TKO in your favor because you won’t have to answer for it once the fight is over.

By: Sergio Hernandez

Sergio Hernandez — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:13:52 +0000

“palm strikes are illegal.”

No, they are not.

By: CW

CW — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 18:11:43 +0000

^^ Random ranting is random.

By: Voridor

Voridor — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 18:00:21 +0000

With all the terrible judges(Cecil) and horseshit opinions(Sam C), this could be the beginning of a bad time in MMA. I’m going to refer to the Matt Brown decision and Sam C saying he was “robbed”. Comments and decisions like these should be hammered by fans all around the world. We will not let Cecil Peoples and other forms of madness “judge” our beloved sport. Steve M is the latest example of a downfall to our sport. First the Lesnar point deduction, now a man gets brutalized a few times and robbed out of a paycheck. Pat yourself on the back with a pickaxe bud, and why don’t you say “hi” for me to Cecil in wonderland.
1)Matt Brown was not robbed. Your wrong Sam. 5-10% of idiots agree with your analysis on Brown.
2)Steve M should be fined and warned of possible firing.
3)Cecil Peoples should be fired ASAP. There is no way in hell the Bisbing won against Hamill, Matt Hughes didn’t win round 1 against BJ Penn (Prison strong)
If anyone agrees with Cecil on the Penn/Hughes fight…may god have mercy on your soul.

By: matt

matt — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 17:55:34 +0000

What angered me is this…burns admits he throws his jab as a palm strike. palm strikes are illegal. thus right after that interview, the NSAC should have made it a NC or DQ win.

By: Rich S.

Rich S. — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 17:17:11 +0000

Russ, did you see the same fight i saw?

Johnson was dominating the ENTIRE fight..
that’s why this sucks so bad..
because Anthony was like, 2 min. away from winning the fight via Decision..
he rocked burns time after time, just couldn’t finish him [and i commend burns on his amazing chin] and if i remember correctly, he even got some takedowns..

i know all’s fair in war, but this sucks severely.. i mean, if AJ was winning the entire fight and got knocked cold, or submitted late in the 3rd.. it’d be fine.. but the fact the he was minutes from victory, and got put down/INJURED by an illegal move REALLY BLOWS..

even if it WASN’T RULED A DQ, it should AT LEAST be ruled a NO CONTEST..

this has got to be the worst case of BS i’ve seen in years..

By: Jay K.

Jay K. — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:41:47 +0000

I agree with OCD and others regarding Burns’ hand and the decision to retitle the fight as a no contest. What exactly is the “Lack of Remedy” here? Burns committed an illegal eye poke and should’ve been disqualified initially. Something should be done regardless to properly absolve Mazzagatti and the NSAC of this poor judgement.

By: ocd

ocd — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:32:29 +0000

Burns should have never been allowed to fight with his hand the way it is. More so, he should have NEVER tried to fight given the potential for injury. In short, this fight should have never happened.

By: jj

jj — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:27:54 +0000

what a joke.

hopefully this means we’ll get to see people win fights by all kinds of illegal moves now.

knees to the head, soccer kicks, steel pipe to the back of the head ko’s, death by tiger.

how the fucking fuck, do you win with an illegal move?!!?!?

a sad day for mma, its not like there was no replay unavailble. they overturn decisions when people cheat with steroids, whats the difference here?

and i hope to christ that kevin burns is banned until he gets his fuckin hand fixed. instead of kevin fixing his hand, AJ has to have eye surgery.

jesus.

By: drightler

drightler — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:03:27 +0000

NAC 467.770 Change of decision after contest or exhibition; factors considered by Commission. (NRS 467.030) The Commission will not change a decision rendered at the end of any contest or exhibition unless:

1. The Commission determines that there was collusion affecting the result of the contest or exhibition;

2. The compilation of the scorecards of the judges discloses an error which shows that the decision was given to the wrong unarmed combatant; or

3. As the result of an error in interpreting a provision of this chapter, the referee has rendered an incorrect decision.

Lack of remedy means the rules don’t allow the decision to be overturned under the circumstances. None of the above apply to AJ’s match…

1) Prove that Mazzagatti was paid off.
2) It didn’t go to the score cards
3) Prove that Mazzagatti saw the last eye poke and that he was unaware that eye pokes were illegal.

By: Neil

Neil — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 13:56:12 +0000

Amazing… at best, I’d call this a no contest, but it really should have been Burns being DQ’d. I can understand why Mazagatti may not have seen it the first time around, but it seems to me that this could be easily remedied. To hell with the bookers, Johnson’s early enough in his career that this matters!

By: BG

BG — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 13:50:02 +0000

@ Jim,

I agree this needs to be address…but I’d rather it be called the Rumble Rule.

By: warcry

warcry — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 13:35:12 +0000

Just a crying shame. This has a boxing stench all over it. I guess appeals are totally worthless. At least we know that going forward.

By: matt

matt — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 13:26:49 +0000

From my understanding “Lack of Remedy” basically means that sports books already paid out on the burns win. If they change the ruling, they now need to pay out the Johnson win and that opens them up for suit. And this is based off the advice of the attorney general.

By: CW

CW — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 13:02:59 +0000

Wow. How pathetic. If they don’t have a “remedy” to deal with a call this obviously erroneous, what remedies do they have?

By: triangleman

triangleman — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 12:58:28 +0000

I could believe that they didn’t rule differently on this! I understand that sometimes in the speed of the action u may miss somethings but that is what appeals are there for. I feel the correct decision here would be a NC! Set up the rematch ASAP, does anyone know how Johnsons recovery from surgery has gone? I was dissappointed in his performance in that fight as well! He looked so good against Tommy Spears and he looked very very tentative in the 1st two plus rnds of this fight