“Darren Stewart kind of baited him Eryk Anders into that knee,” says UFC VP Marc Ratners

“Darren Stewart kind of baited him Eryk Anders into that knee,” says UFC VP Marc Ratners

Of Late, there have been several controversies in the UFC within a short period of events. The referees have had a really tough time calling fights. Though the sport has a fair set of rules, there seems to be a lot of difficulty in implementing them. Referees have been criticized more than ever in recent times.

From the disqualification of Petr Yan that led to him losing his championship belt to Aljamain Sterling, a couple no contests and eye pokes have all been witnessed over the last two months of MMA action. Just after a week of Petr Yan’s DQ, Eryk Anders and Darren Stewart’s fight ended in No contest.

The decision of calling the fight no contest caused some tension among fans and other UFC spectators because Eryk Anders also illegally knee’d Darren while he was on the ground. A week earlier, Yan did the same thing to Sterling that resulted in a slightly different decision.

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Just like Sterling, Stewart too couldn’t continue the fight but Yan was DQ’d whereas the other bout was a ‘No Contest’. UFC VP of regulatory affairs was asked about this decision and he shed some light on the confusion. Marc Ratner spoke with MMA Junkie recently about this.

Marc believes that Herb Dean felt it was an accidental knee from Anders

Eryk Anders-Herb Dean-Darren Stewart

Talking in the interview about the ‘No contest’ fight in UFC Vegas 21, Marc said, “In the Yan fight, Mark Smith was the referee, and he felt that the knee was intentional. And therefore, because Sterling couldn’t go forward, that became a disqualification.”

“The difference from last Saturday’s fight was Herb Dean felt that maybe (Anders), who landed the knee, (and Stewart), who was putting his hand up and down, kind of baited him into that knee. He felt it was an accident. Therefore it became a No Contest or a ‘No Decision” said Ratner.

Though it is very hard to see the difference between the two illegal knees we can clearly summarise from Ratners interview that it all boils down to the subjective interpretation of the referees. What are your thoughts on this?

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