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[Cat--Smasher]

Mazzagatti to referee Jose Aldo vs. Frankie Edgar, Adelaide Byrd listed as one of the judges

Steve Mazzagatti to referee Jose Aldo vs. Frankie Edgar, Adelaide Byrd listed as one of the judges - Bloody Elbow

MMA Junkie named the referee and the judges:

During a meeting Tuesday in Las Vegas, the Nevada State Athletic Commission tapped veteran referee Steve Mazzagatti to officiate UFC 156's main event.

Additionally, the commission named Adelaide Byrd, Jeff Collins and Junichiro Kamijo to judge the featherweight title fight.

The Adelaide Byrd assignment is puzzling. It makes you root for a stoppage regardless of who wins. Not even one month ago from today she scored Melvin Guillard vs. Jamie Varner 30-27 for Guillard. She has a history of unspeakably bad scorecards in both MMA and boxing. If we only stick with MMA, Byrd scored Jake Ellenberger vs. Carlos Eduardo Rocha 30-27 for Rocha, and gave Leonard Garcia the first fight against Nam Phan. And now the Nevada State Athletic Commission sees it perfectly acceptable to give her not just a title fight, but a title fight featuring Frankie Edgar, and we all know that when his fights go the distance there is no controversy at all.

[Fe1]

Holy shit. How she's allowed to judge at all, let alone a fight this high profile, is beyond me. This does not bode well.

[Fedorlei Gomipierre]

I've read alot on the atrociousness of Byrd's judging. I absolutely hate the incredulity of those NSAC cocksuckers and their "we see no fault" rhetoric.

Scary shit if this goes to a decision.

[Bork_Lazer]

Kind of a double edged sword when both the ref and the judge are terrible.

[Y2JUBAE]

Man I gotta become a ref or judge. Other than a US politician, it's one of the only jobs you can fail at every time and never get fired.

[Fe1]

Ok, I'm drawing a blank. What bad calls has Mazzagatti made lately?

[HillbillyDeluxe]

Originally Posted by Bork_Lazer

Kind of a double edged sword when both the ref and the judge are terrible.

Steve is one of the better referees in my opinion. Got that good old veteran knowledge, but he just like the rest of us are human and make mistakes/bonehead calls. shit happens

Mazzagatti would be my first choice over several others.

[LefthookStcrook]

I dont understand how theres a list load of mistakes and no one who can do anything cares.

If her boss was a fan of MMA, im sure it'd only take a 30sec conversation to change her boss's mind about her..."She scored that fight what?...and that fight?...yeah shes fired".

I have a hard time thinking the people in charge are OK with some of those scorecards. If so..then we got ourselves a long road ahead of us regarding judging.

[Cat--Smasher]

White reacts to selection of Mazzagatti for UFC 156 main event - Mixed Martial Arts News

UFC 156, which takes place this Saturday, Feb. 2, in Las Vegas is headlined by a featherweight title fight, pitting champion Jose Aldo vs. former lightweight champ Frankie Edgar.

Last week the Nevada State Athletic Commission tapped veteran referee Steve Mazzagatti to officiate the main event. Mazzagatti, who was chosen for the assignment over Herb Dean and Yves Lavigne, will earn $1,200.

Mazzagatti has refereed dozens of high-profile bouts in Nevada, and is frequently maligned by UFC president Dana White, who has said "this guy shouldn’t even be watching the UFC, let alone reffing it."

This weekend was no exception.

“I could go off for 45 minutes on officiating over [in Nevada],” said White recently. “Steve Mazzagatti is the ref reffing the superfight. What more can I do (while turning his hand into a gun and pulling the trigger against his head)? Mazzagatti is reffing the superfight. What more needs to be said than that?

“I can’t do anything. As a promoter, I can’t do anything. The fighters can. The fighters can say, ‘Oh my God.’ They can say, ‘I don’t want him,’ and they gotta go in and give good cause on why they don’t want him.”

“I can tell you this, if I was a fighter, the last thing I would want to see when I got in the cage is Mazzagatti. That’s the last thing I would want to see.”

Mazzagatti has defended his performance in the past.

“[White] has criticized us and we get a lot of criticism for not standing them up – at least I do,” said Mazzagatti said in July of last year. “They say we let fighters lay on the ground too long and we’re not doing anything. We don’t make the rules. We enforce them. It’s not our job to make sure the fight goes the way the promoter wants it to go. It’s the fighter’s job. It’s their show."

“I don’t make the rules. If you want to make a 15-second standup rule, then come up with a 15-second standup rule and I will stand them up in 15 seconds. I can only go with what’s given to me. I don’t judge fighters by who they are and what they’re known for.”

“You gotta understand, I don’t work for Dana and we don’t work for Dana. I feel I’m a public servant for the fans and the fighters. I want to make sure the fighters have a good, clean, fair fight that they trained for and expect.”

[Kimbo> Rampage]

lets hope Mazzagatti donest fuck this fight up...

the fox card had all the right matchups but disappointed imo... looking forward to this card.

Aldo vs. Edgar is a dream fight. As an aldo fan, Frankie has me nervous.