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Longtime MMA coach Ray Longo went after the sport\u2019s referees, whom he called \u201cscumbags\u201d due to their inconsistencies.<\/p>\n
MMA officiating has been at the forefront of fan and media discussion on social media as of late. It\u2019s always been a talking point, but with controversial non-calls in fights like Alex Pereira vs. Ciryl Gane, Vinicius Oliveira vs. Andre Fili<\/a>, and Shara Magomedov vs. Michel Pereira<\/a>, fans have been talking about referees, and specifically Herb Dean<\/a>, more than ever before.<\/p>\n Of course, Dean is not the only referee in MMA, and at UFC<\/a> Baku, a few other referees made some controverisal calls.<\/p>\n In the first fight of the night between Tahir Abdullayev and Jefferson Nascimento, referee Jim Perdios was criticized for a very early stoppage. Then, in the fight between Nazim Sadykhov and Matheus Camilo, referee Rich Mitchell also stopped the fight for what some felt was too early.<\/p>\n Longo, Sadykhov\u2019s longtime coach at Longos\u2019 MMA, was angry about the stoppage and let the referee hear it on the latest edition of his podcast.<\/p>\n Ray Longo Goes After \u2018Scumbag\u2019 Referees<\/p>\n Speaking on the \u201cAnik & Florian Podcast,\u201d<\/a> where Longo is a frequent guest, Longo went on a fiery rant about the current state of MMA officiating.<\/p>\n \u201cThese guys can go (expletive) themselves at this point. Be consistent. That\u2019s all anyone wants is consistency. There is 10 other referees who would\u2019ve let that fight go on, and that\u2019s the issue. They don\u2019t understand that they are affecting these kids\u2019 futures. I mean, they are (expletive) scumbags at the end of the day. Be consistent and just do your (expletive) job that you\u2019re paid for. There is too many inconsistencies, and that\u2019s where it goes south,\u201d Longo said (via Bloody Elbow<\/a>).<\/p>\n \u201cJust do your f**king job\u2026 there\u2019s too many inconsistencies and that\u2019s where it goes south\u201d \ud83d\ude33<\/p>\n Veteran MMA coach Ray Longo and Jon Anik on the current state of refereeing in MMA. Late stoppages are becoming the norm \u2014 and it\u2019s putting fighters\u2019 health at serious risk.<\/p>\n New <\/p>\n Longo believes that MMA officials need to know what they are signing up for when they take the job, as the fighters know the reprocussions, but it doesn\u2019t feel like the officials do.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m gonna apologize right away because I don\u2019t wanna get too crazy. We\u2019re in a sport that maybe shouldn\u2019t be there. You\u2019re gonna get hit in the head. Getting hit in the head once in your life is not for you. Dehydrating your internal organs over and over again is not good. There is nothing good about the sport. Everybody has to know what the repercussions are, and if you choose to do it, that\u2019s the society we live in; you\u2019re allowed to do it. They know what the repercussions are, and you have to have referees that understand that and are going to abide by that,\u201d Longo said.<\/p>\n Will Anything Change With MMA Officiating?<\/p>\n With all the criticism directed towards MMA referees as of late, the question everyone wants to know is, will anything change?<\/p>\n It\u2019s unlikely, because MMA referees are well protected from criticism from the athletic commissions that employ them. Unless something really egregious takes place, it feels like referees are simply never punished for doing a bad job.<\/p>\n Case in point with Dean, who continues to get reffing assignments on big UFC fight cards every single week despite making some very bad decisions as of late.<\/p>\n MMA reffing is a hard job, and not everyone can do it. But these refs have fighters\u2019 careers in their hands, and they need to be better.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tAdam Martin<\/a> Adam Martin is a sports journalist with over 15 years of experience. He has a speciality in MMA, while also covering the Big 4 Sports. Adam is currently a contributor to Heavy.com, with previous experience working for The Toronto Star, Sportsnet, theScore, Bookies, BJPenn.com, and MMAOddsbreaker.com. More about Adam Martin<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Longtime MMA coach Ray Longo went after the sport\u2019s referees, whom he called \u201cscumbags\u201d due to their inconsistencies.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":770054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-770053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=770053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/770054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=770053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=770053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=770053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}