One Fighting Championship announced today that the bout that
took place on 31 August 2012 at ONE FC: PRIDE OF A NATION in the Philippines
between Shannon Wiratchai and Mitch Chilson has been ruled a no contest after a
thorough review by ONE FC Officials. Shannon Wiratchai’s record will now
officially be recorded as two wins and one no contest and Mitch Chilson’s will
officially be recorded as three wins, one loss and one no contest.
After a thorough review of the match, ONE FC Officials have
decided that Wiratchai landed an illegal leg kick to a grounded Chilson in
round two and referee Moritaka Oshiro incorrectly stopped the fight as he
determined at that point that Chilson could not properly defend himself. This
win for Wiratchai has now been reversed and this fight will now be officially
ruled as a no contest.
Also, earlier this week ONE FC announced that it will adopt full
PRIDE rules for soccer kicks, eliminating the open attack signal from the
referee. All soccer kicks to a grounded opponent are now legal at all times.
This decision was made to prevent any future confusion for fighters when
delivering kicks to grounded opponents.
Now I can understand the change in decision but I do not agree
to it. I think this is an even greater mistake to correct this days after the
match. The declaration of a “no contest” should have been done immediately
right after the match not four days after. If technical officials declared such
after the controversial end of the Andrei-Arlovski-Tim Sylvia match then why did
it take four days to make a decision on the Wiratchai-Chilson bout?
Yet the current decision on the Phil Baroni- Rodrigo Ribiero
match stands even if soccer kicks were used as well.
Does this mean that the fighters were not fully briefed?
Assuming they were, they should have gotten it right immediately after the
Baroni-Ribiero match.
I thought that Moritaka Oshiro stopped the fight a few seconds
prematurely but he has a few seconds to make a decision to protect a fighter’s
health. MMA has been replete with controversial decisions and stoppages. There’s
the end to the first round between Dan Henderson and Fedor Emelianenko (in a
Strikeforce match last July 2011) where referee Herb Dean had to make a quick
decision. Strikeforce did not reverse the decision of Dean.
I believe that the One Fighting Championship: Pride of a Nation
has pushed MMA into a greater consciousness in the country but poor officiating
not to mention the reversal of decisions can be construed as not being able to
get their act together.
Hopefully, One FC and other MAA outfits will figure this out.
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