Not for title fights you aren't, unless you're a company man apparently

yeah you'right.
still, he would had 2 hours to lose 1 pounds if he would of failed anyway..

Looks like Cruz is commentating tonight so thats already a postive for the card.

Wow what a cluster**** in this fight. Mousasi hits Weidman with a legal knee and ref calls a stoppage for an illegal knee. Gives Weidman 5 minutes to recover and during the down time they realise its legal while the doctor is looking at Weidman. Then the ref calls the fight for a TKO.

I don't know why they stopped the fight. I do think wiedman was going to lose though.

The ref made a mistake and stopped the fight, but at the same time that is a legit incredibily tough call to make. Honestly i think Weidman seemed like he was milking it and looking for a stoppage. You could see a change in his demeanor when the ref came in and told him it was a legal hit.

Wineman bitched out. That was a T.B.O.

The ref called the knees illegal, he was wrong, but once he makes that call it stands. Got the NYSAC is a joke.

50. TexasSAC
49. NYSAC

Bizarre ending aside, the Weidman-Mousasi fight emphasis what a monstrous division middleweight has become. Weidman breezed his way through to the title and dominated his successful defences. But now he's taken a lot of damage against three different guys.

The mistake by the ref made little difference. Weidman was out and if the fight continued he would have taken more damage.

I dunno about milking it, but Weidman may well have unwittingly contributed to the decision. When the referee called time, he was giving the impression of a guy who had been badly hurt, which may have influenced the commission. It wouldn't have been fair to Mousasi that Weidman was allowed so much time to recover. There should be a replay ref who can quickly inform the fight ref.

So if it was an illegal knee, do they stop the fight or does Weidman get the 5 minutes and they start again? Like a eye poke?

Since it was a legal knee, why didn't they just start the fight again?

How much of the hand has to be on the mat when the knee happens? Weidmans fingers were touching and then lifted after he got kneed, does he have to maintain contact with the mat the whole time?

......and Bisping is the Champion of it all.

It has to be a TKO for Mousasi, anything else let's Weidman (or anyone in that situation) freeroll by claiming to be so hurt they can't continue.

Think about if let the fight continue there. If a borderline strike turns out to be illegal and Weidman has been claiming he can't continue, he wins by DQ. If it turns out to be legal and you let the fight keep going then he just got a huge recovery period from a legal shot. Either way it is win-win for Weidman, that can't happen. That would make pretending to be hurt the optimal play anytime there is an illegal or close to illegal strike.

The only way the fight should be allowed to continue is if Weidman is immediately saying "I'm ok, I can continue." as soon as the ref steps in for the illegal blow. He absolutely cannot have it both ways.

Weidman was definitely acting like he wasn't going to be able to continue when he thought it was illegal and then the instant he found it wasn't he was "No, no! Don't stop the fight, I'm ok!" **** that. Take your TKO and **** off Weidman you lying piece of crap.

It is somewhat farcical that arguanly the weakest of the top 6 guys is champion. But that's partly due to absurd, rank-ignoring matchmaking.

Its pretty results oriented to say "weidman would have lost anyway" or "weidman couldnt continue anyway". Once the ref calls the fight, its either a DQ or a no contest. After they confirmed via replay and Weidman couldn't continue, it should have been a no contest.

The ref did not call the fight. He stopped it because he thought it was an illegal knee and was giving Weidman time to recover. Weidman, at this point, seemed to be saying he couldn't continue. Ref then finds out it was NOT an illegal knee and tells Weidman that. Weidman then changes his tune and says he is fine, don't stop the fight. The doctors refuse to let him continue because of what he said earlier and they rule it a TKO for Mousasi since there were no illegal blows.

The problems here are:

1) Ref mistakenly thought it was illegal knee. He shouldn't have stopped it but in fairness it was incredibly close, we needed a frame by frame slow motion replay to see it.

2) There is no replay allowed in NY, so ref shouldn't have known it actually was legal. On live broadcast it sounded to me like someone just told him, not that he looked at a replay. Is someone allowed to tell him that? If so, who is allowed to? Anyone? Only certain people? Who knows.

3) Cruz kept saying the Dr's were not allowed to rule Weidman unfit to continue in that circumstance so they should not have stopped the fight. No idea if that is true or not but given Wideman's duplicity in pretending to be hurt/not hurt even if this was not allowed we ended up with the correct result.

I hope Mousasi tells Weidman to shove his rematch up his ass. Hope appeal goes nowhere, Weidman lost that fight pure and simple.

I agree 100%. I mean I get why people who wanted him to win are upset because the illegal vs legal strike change is irregular, but if you are focused on that and ignoring the fact that he was trying to win by faking that he couldn't continue when he thought it was in his favor I am not sure what you like about this sport.

ETA: seriously the argument being made is the ref made a mistake and Weidman made a decision to angle based on that mistake and it shouldn't be allowed to be corrected. It's not even arguing that the mistake caused him to lose, you are arguing the correction did. So ****ing weak.

That's what I meant. Once he stops the fight at that point, it's either a no contest or a DQ.

Not trying to defend Weidman's actions here. He was clearly angle-shooting. He deserved to lose. Just saying that UFC officiating needs to be objective and consistent when declaring results, no matter what.

I'm not up on all the rules, but I do remember Johnson taking an L after not being able to continue from an eye poke, which is illegal. If this was at worst an accidental, razor close illegal strike like the ref thought, and let's be honest he wasn't a helpless grounded opponent if if it was, why is it different?

I'm really asking here not making an argument one way or the other.

The ref didn't see that eye poke.

Would've been a NC or DQ otherwise. It's funny though, bc it's listed as TKO (eye injury).

Now, guys have had eye injuries from legit punches tho. I remember that happening to Alessio Sakara.

No it isn't, there is a difference between stopping the fight because a fighter can't continue and stopping to give a fighter time to recover from an illegal blow. The ref did not stop the fight because Weidman couldn't continue. He stopped because he incorrectly thought there was an illegal blow.

Even if the blow had been illegal the fight is not over at that point. We are waiting to see if Weidman can continue. We are not at a "DQ or NC" decision yet. That only happens if Weidman says he can't continue after being given 5 minutes to recover. Before his 5 minutes were up we found out it was legal.

At that point what is supposed to happen is the fight continues if Weidman is able to (I think, I'm basing that on what Cruz was saying) but the Dr's wouldn't let him continue because of him implying that he was too hurt to continue before we found out it was legal. The Dr's are not allowed to stop the fight there (I think, again I'm assuming Cruz is correct saying they can't do that). However, I think it should be stopped there as a TKO to prevent Weidman from freerolling. It is an unusual spot.

In any case, it is not a DQ or NC situation only, we never got to that point.

When a fight is paused due to an illegal blow, presumably it is up to the referee (possibly in consultation with a doctor) whether to resume the fight? Does the injured fighter have any say in the matter? What happens if a guy gets eye poked or hit in the groin, can he benefit from a DQ by claiming he can't continue? That surely can't be the case but wondering how the rules distinguish between when a fight should be stopped as a result of an illegal blow and when it should continue once the fighter has been given a chance to recover.

It's whether they deem the blow intentional or unintentional, you could hear Mirgs say it was unintentional initially.

If it's an unintentional situation: I believe if it's in the 3rd round they go to the judges cards for the first two rounds scoring, otherwise it's a no contest.