MixedMartialArtsLawBlog Year-End Updates

Posted on December 31, 2009 by David Nelmark

As 2009 comes to a close, I wanted to provide updates on a few of the year's MMALB columns.

Rapper DMX  Pulls Out of MMA Fight.   According to this statement released by the promoter, the entire event had to be canceled because "[w]hen [DMX] decided to back out of the event due to our refusal to fix his fight, it left Thunder Promotions LLC with little time to promote an event with a replacement headliner."   According to other sources only a few hundred tickets had been sold.

While there is a tremendous amount of comedic value in writing about an MMA event where DMX is deemed a "headliner," the cancellation does have sad consequences for the other fighters on the card, especially Iowa's own Travis Fulton (who has 192 MMA wins on his record). Fulton was looking to reinvent himself and make it to the big show.  Instead, according to his manager, Chad Bergmeier, all Fulton got after arriving in Alabama was a redeye flight back home.  To date, the promoters still have not come through with Fulton's paycheck.

MMA Organizations Battle Piracy -  The Square Ring v. UStream lawsuit has gotten bogged down, but UFC co-owner Lorenzo Fertitta recently testified before the House Judiciary Committee (along with executives from Major League Baseball) about the importance of cracking down on online piracy.  I think it's a watershed event when an MMA bigwig gets to go to Washington to speak alongside a Big Three (NFL, NBA, and MLB) representative.     

This related Cagewriter article is interesting.  It covers the testimony and also provides an example of why if you are planning to tell people how to steal a pay per view broadcast you should not first send an email to event promoters. 

Jon "Bones" Jones's Appeal to the NSAC is Denied.  MMAJunkie provides a full recap.  While I am not surprised at the denial, I am still waiting for someone to comment and resolve the discrepancy between the referee only deducting a single point, but then calling Jones's downward elbows an intentional foul.

And, most importantly, Kimo is still alive!

I leave you with one of my favorite MMA quotes of the year.  It's not law-related, but it is nonetheless worth sharing, and it comes from MMA Journalist Jim Genia:

BJ Penn is without a doubt some kind of fighting deity, but I definitely think Gray Maynard, Frankie Edgar and Jim Miller can beat him. However, they have to coordinate it so they all attacking him at once, i.e., Maynard comes in low, Edgar comes in high and Miller blasts him with a shotgun. Otherwise, they're doomed.

Happy New Year, MMALB readers!

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Jon Jones Files Appeal Over DQ Loss to Hamill

Posted on December 17, 2009 by David Nelmark

At the finale for the 10th season of The Ultimate Fighter, Jon "Bones" Jones, took on Matt "The Hammer" Hamill.  Jones dominated the fight and was nearing a stoppage victory when referee Steve Mazzagatti halted the contest as a result of illegal "12 to 6" elbows a/k/a "striking downward with the point of the elbow" which is prohibited by the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts.  Mazzagatti took away a point, but when he returned to Hamill, he concluded that Hamill could not continue and stopped the fight.  Jones did a celebratory cartwheel and viewers headed into the commercial break thinking Jones' perfect record was intact.  However, when Bruce Buffer announced the results, Hamill was given the victory by virtue of a disqualification.

MMAJunkie.com has a great recap of what happened during the break.  In short, Mazzagatti took advantage of a new Nevada State Athletic Commission rule that allowed him to consult instant replay.  When he looked at the tape, he decided the illegal elbows were what prevented Hamill from continuing, and he thus ruled the fight a DQ.  NSAC Athletic Director Keith Kizer backed up Mazzagatti saying that if the fight was stopped as a result of an illegal blow, there was no choice but to render a disqualification.

Now, Jones's managers have filed an appeal with the NSAC seeking to overturn the result.  Their arguments include the fact that Mazzagatti tried to ascertain whether Hamill (who is deaf) could continue by verbally asking him the question.  Hamill can read lips, but had blood in his eyes and might not have seen Mazzagatti let alone understood the question.  Based on the timing of the halt in the action, Hamill likely thought he had lost by TKO.  The complaint also asserts that prior, legal elbows and/or a shoulder injury sustained during a throw by Jones caused the damage that prevented Hamill from continuing.  Both of these arguments are persuasive, but they are factual questions.   

NAC 467.770 states that, absent collusion, a disciplinary violation such as a failed drug test, or a scoring error:

The Commission will not change a decision rendered at the end of any contest or exhibition unless . . . [a]s the result of an error in interpreting a provision of this chapter, the referee has rendered an incorrect decision.

Accordingly, as I read this provision, the NSAC cannot overturn Mazzagatti's decision just because it thinks a different blow ended the fight.  It has to decide that he misinterpreted a rule.  This is where the plot thickens.

If Mazzagatti had believed the foul was accidental, the fight would have been ruled a no contest pursuant to NAC 467.7966.   So, to disqualify Jones, Mazzagatti had to determine the foul was intentional.  I have no beef with such a determination because, while Jones might not have known he was committing a foul, he certainly intended to drop the 12 to 6 elbow and, like all laws, ignorance of an MMA rule is no excuse.  But, Mazzagatti's earlier actions implied that the foul was not intentional.  

Before stopping the fight after Hamill failed to respond to his question, Mazzagatti deducted a single point from Jones during the break in the action.   (Fight is available here on YouTube, until it gets pulled for infringing Zuffa's copyrights.)  He pulls Jones off of Hamill at 1:07 and then very clearly says "1 point" at the :57 mark. 

NSAC 467.698 states:

If the referee determines that a contest or exhibition may continue despite an injury caused by an intentional foul, the referee shall immediately inform the Commission’s representative and the judges and shall deduct two points from the score of the unarmed combatant who committed the intentional foul.

Although a mandatory two point deduction for an intentional foul does not appear in the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts, it seems to be clearly the rule in Nevada.  (Some Nevada rules for unarmed combat state that they don't apply to MMA, but 467.498 contains no such caveat.) Thus, a one-point deduction implies that the foul was accidental (which leaves the amount of the deduction in the discretion of the referee pursuant to NAC 467.7964).

I don't know that Mazzagatti's mistake rendered the result an "incorrect decision" but it appears that he did make at least one misinterpretation of the Nevada rules.  Dana White is likely not surprised.

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