MMA Referee Under Fire for Shocking Stand-Up Decision

One of the more egregious officiating and refereeing jobs done in recent, like, MMA history and actually, like, all MMA history, right? Like, really, the referee's job is just to sort of stay out of the way, make sure people don't grab the cage, and for the safety of the fighter, stop a fight. And, you know, it's supposed to affect the fight, so to speak. So, of course, Moikano gets stood up. I liked his honesty after, Tom, in which he said, you know, I'm not saying I would have won the fight, for sure. But, you know, that didn't help. And he ends up getting dropped in the next round after. What did you make of Merguljan? I brought this up earlier, but just briefly, guys. When my boy Heath Herring fought Brock Lesnar, Merguljan was the referee. And this isn't talked about, whatever, and similar situation. Brock Lesnar was going to beat Heath Herring at that time. It was what it was. But I don't know if you noticed, Tom, when right before the fight, they were face-to-face, Merguljan poked Heath in the eye. I remember that, yeah. He said, are you ready? And he poked, like, how do you do that if you're a referee? How do you? The other thing is, too, like, he's a big guy, too, like a tall guy. Like, how do you poke a fighter? Like, you saw Heath right away. It was like, oh, then the fight starts, and he gets punched in the face after. Merguljan has been, like, the worst. People pick on Herb Dean a lot. Herb Dean lets people get beat up too long. That's Herb's thing, right? Like, Herb should stop fights quicker than he does. Okay, fine. You look back. Remember Yves Lavoie? He's not around anymore. I forgot about him. It just popped in my head right now. Yves Lavoie, if you guys remember, referee from Quebec. He used to be known for stopping fights too quickly. It was like, dude, man, the guy's going to, you know, he's fine. He's fine. And he was like overly cautious. Herb Deans just sort of like stands there and watches guys get murdered sometimes. But Herb Dean has been terrible at his job for years He really has been. Yeah. And, you know, it's a tough job to be a ref. But, you know, you make it easier on yourself by not getting involved in situations like I've never seen a stand up from the back. You just can't do that. This is mixed martial arts at the end of the day. I don't care if the Apex crowd is booing or the crowd, you know, in an arena is booing. A guy has back control. If you can't get out of that position, you first of all, to me, there really should never be stand ups. This is Mixed Martial Arts. Wrestling is involved. Jiu-Jitsu is involved. And when a guy has another guy's back and he can't get up, he shouldn't be rewarded. Like, he should not be able to get up. And also, Moicano was nasty on the back. And we saw Tom Nolan was surviving, was doing great, defending all the chokes. but there it could take one second for that choke to slip in it could happen it could happen with 10 seconds to go on the round and he could be asleep at the end of the round it can happen at any point you never you can't stand these guys up and you know going into the third round if Moicano doesn't sub him maybe he does get knocked out he did look like he was slowing down you know Nolan was having success on the feet Moicano maybe does get knocked out in the third round but you You cannot take a guy out of a dominant position like that. It's just, you just can't do it. And there, there wasn't a ton of time left on the clock, you know, another minute and a half, two minutes, whatever it was of back control next round, they're on the feet again. He's got a chance to knock him out. We got five rounds to do this. So there, that, that stand up to me when it happened, I couldn't believe it happened. And, uh, yeah, to this right now, I still, I can't believe it. You cannot take a guy off of somebody's back. You just can't do it.