Referee Steve Mazzagatti Discusses Lesnar-Mir Fight — An MMAjunkie.com Interview

MMAJUNKIE.COM: OK, onto the fight. When we spoke earlier, you mentioned that the decision to deduct Lesnar one point for strikes to the back of Mir’s head was pretty clear. Can you explain?
STEVE MAZZAGATTI: These fighters are extremely skilled fighters, and a grappler like Frank, that’s what they’re trained to do: when you have a guy in half guard on top of you, you don’t want to give the guy room to punch. So that was Mir’s defense. You suck up close to (your opponent’s) chest, tuck yourself up under them, and that covers you from getting hit. At first, Brock started to do the right thing by winding up with the hook from behind and pushing Mir’s head away from his stomach. Then you can blast him in the face… but to have to worry about getting struck in the back in the head in a situation like that isn’t something Frank should have had to worry about. But that was a target that presented itself to Brock.

for the full interview go to LINK

Perfectly good explaination by steve and i agree about everything he said !!

And no, i am not in the Mazzagatti Moustache fight camp !! lol

Time-out call, followed by a warning, followed by a restart in position would have sufficed. I don't like how Mazzagatti calls fights. They should have Yves Lavigne ref all the important matches.

this should really put an end to this. mazagatti thoroughly explains himself and if you watch the tape yourself it is clear he is right with his explanation. the article perfectly justifies the stand up and deduction imo. it is different from the other fights where rabbit punches occurred because in the other fights the fighters weren't going ballistic and repeatedly hitting the back of the head after their warning but rather hitting it only a few times not is succession. brock clearly was ignoring the warning or never heard it and showed no signs of stopping the blows to the back of the head. mazagatti was 100% right when he said mir shouldn't have worried about getting hit in the back of th head in that situation and this article only strengthens my view on this fight. i have no complaints with mazagatti in this fight.

good reading and good response from Steve too.

this is what happen when you don't have Big John, if he was the one to make that call there would be no complains about it.

yeah I rematched the fight after reading this and I agree with Steve's choice.

I think he should have stood them up but not the point deduction as he really wasn't intentionally aiming for the back of Mirs head. Just hammer fisting out of control.
BROCK ANGRY!!!!
BROCK SMASH!!!
BROCK TAP OUT!



Seriously though Lenser will be pretty dang good in the future look at Mirs face from just a few hammer fists.

I like the way Mazzagatti calls fights. He's always very firm and decisive with his actions. So was Big John, but Herb Dean doesn't always seem as sure of himself. It also doesn't seem like he's as "in the fighters' ears" as Mazzagatti is and Big John was. They're always calling things out to the fighters like "No Knees!" or "improve your position or I'll stand you up". Dean just lets the one guy lay on his back for 45 seconds while the other guy stands there unsure of whether he wants to pounce or not. He needs to be more decisive in situations like that and not come off as confused as the fighters are.

Way to take initiative, Mazzagatti!

i still think that the stand up and point deduction was a little severe (the point deduction in specific). i wouldnt have any issue with it however if it was always enforced like this. i dont like strikes to the back of the head and it is kinda a pet peeve of mine as well when a wrestler takes someones back and just tees off with looping shots that still land to the back of the head. i just think that you cant treat a guy like brock differently just because he is so big and strong. hopefully this will bring to light some of the issues and this rule will be more evenly enforced in the future.

im glad that brock was able to immediately regain an even more dominant position so that franks win is in no way really controversial...you can debate this issue all you want, and i think it is an interesting theoretical debate, but the bottom line is that frank was immediately put into an even worse position and he still was able to pull out the submission win...WAR MIR!!

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Posted by jiujitsufreak74

this should really put an end to this. mazagatti thoroughly explains himself and if you watch the tape yourself it is clear he is right with his explanation. the article perfectly justifies the stand up and deduction imo. it is different from the other fights where rabbit punches occurred because in the other fights the fighters weren't going ballistic and repeatedly hitting the back of the head after their warning but rather hitting it only a few times not is succession. brock clearly was ignoring the warning or never heard it and showed no signs of stopping the blows to the back of the head. mazagatti was 100% right when he said mir shouldn't have worried about getting hit in the back of th head in that situation and this article only strengthens my view on this fight. i have no complaints with mazagatti in this fight.

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i agree. just watch the video. 5 times w/ a warning. and after the interview there isn't a doubt in my mind mozz did the right thing

I was surprised at the point deduction at first but then watched the fight again. You can clearly see that Brock had no self-discipline on where he was landing punches. I agree with Steve’s decision on a point deduction. Besides it didn’t really matter in the end.

He does explain himself quite well, but I still think the point deduction was a bit much. A stand up and a warning would have been enough. If he had done it again, then definitely deduct a point.

By the way, take a look at the picture at the top of this thread. Where's the point deduction on Mir for the eye gouge. j/k