Steve Mazzagatti’s top 5 worst calls
There is a lot of good debate in the MMA world. It can range from discussions on who the best pound for pound fighter is to what is the best style to dominate any given weight class. However, if there is one universal agreement that can be determined it would be these two things. One, Steve Mazzagatti is the worst referee in MMA and two everyone hates him. Dana White just recently went on record saying that Mazzagatti shouldn’t be allowed to watch MMA let alone ref it. With such strong words, I decided to take a look back at Steve’s record and pull out the matches that contain his top 5 worst calls ever. LET’S GET IT ON!
5. Varner v.s McCullough - Seriously Steve? A time out? This isn’t basketball, football, or any other kind of ball. Fighters don’t get to call timeout during a match especially when they are on the a** end of an a**beating. Thanks to Mazzagatti, Varner was able to stall a beating he was taking from McCullough in order to get his mouth piece back in. He not only stopped the momentum but gained a precious 30 seconds to recover which lead to him to come back and knock McCullough out.
4. Doerksen v.s Macdonald - It’s bad enough that Mazzagatti has a track record of stopping fights too early, but it’s even worse that he can’t keep THAT consistent. In a sick twist of irony Mazzagatti admitted to making a mistake when he allowed Macdonald to continue hitting Doerksen with additional hammer fists even after the match was thought to have already ended. At least when other refs mess up they err on the side of caution.
3. Burns v.s Johnson - I understand that Mazzagatti is a ref and not a police investigator but you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to know that Kevin Burns most likely did not take out Anthony Johnson with a legitimate strike. This is even after Mazzagatti had warned Burns not once, not twice, but FOUR times that his open hand strikes were a danger to Johnson’s eyes. Once Johnson had gone down the way he did clutching his eye, common sense would lead us to think that Burns poked him in it. But noooooo Mazzagatti instead decides to award Burns the TKO. Remind me to never let Steve on a criminal jury.
2. Velasquez v.s Rothwell - The funny thing about this stoppage was, there were 5 other times Mazzagatti could have stopped the match where it would have looked less suspect then the point where he DID stop the match at. It was like Mazzagatti was saying during the match “nah stopping it here would be too obvious I’ll wait for when it looks a lot closer”. To no one’s surprise Mazzagatti ended the match by pulling Cain off Rothwell as he was on his way to standing up. Who the heck stops a match when the fighter in trouble is on his way to a recovery? Granted Rothwell was getting his a** handed to him no doubt, but Mazzagatti’s stoppage was poor and very fitting for number 2 on this list.
1. Mir v.s Lesnar I - There have been many horrible mistakes made by all refs throughout the history of the UFC but this one has got to take the cake. I thought that Mazzagatti giving Lesnar a point deduction for back of the head strikes was bad but who knew it was about to get even worse. It has been argued that Lesnar would have won the match if Mazzagatti had not paused it but what is also pretty nutty was that Brock didn’t really get a warning. Then the piece de resistance. Mir gets Lesnar in an ankle lock and you could have literally done your taxes during the point where Lesnar started tapping and the point where Mazzagatti decided to stop the fight.
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