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Referee error leads to controversial call at UFC Fight Night: Allen vs. Craig
During the preliminary portion of UFC Fight Night: Allen vs. Craig this past Saturday, we saw Trey Ogden vs. Nikolas Motta come to a controversial end. After winning two of three rounds on the judges’ scorecards, Ogden was clearly on his way to a win against Motta, but he saw an opportunity to get his first UFC win via finish. While on the ground in the final round, the ’Samurai Ghost’ had Motta wrapped up with an arm triangle. As Ogden squeezed, referee Mike Beltran repeatedly asked ‘Iron’ to ‘show him something’ and checked his arm.
Because Motta was defending the arm triangle, he could not give a response to Beltran, so the referee waved off the fight. And that was where things got weird.
The initial ruling got passionate responses from both fighters with Ogden celebrating his first UFC finish and Motta popping up enraged and complaining. Things changed fast for both fighters with the announcement came that the fight was ruled a No Contest.
“I was really happy with the performance, happy to get the win, but I’m pretty disappointed right now,” said Ogden during his post-fight interview with Paul Felder. “I’m in the third round of a tough fight. I got bills to pay. A No Contest? I mean, I deserve my win money. I got to — I don’t care about records or whatever, but dude I better get paid because I’m in with a mounted triangle.
“I hear the ref tell him three times to show him that he was still there,” continued Ogden. “And on the third time, he stops the fight. I didn’t stop the fight. If he just let it go two more minutes, Nik would’ve never got out of mount, I win, I get my money. I don’t understand.”
Ogden hopes to receive his full fight purse from the UFC
With the low low pay rates for UFC fighters, Trey Odgen is naturally pushing to receive his full fight purse since he shouldn’t be punished for an error on the referee’s part. He let his feelings vent at the post-event press conference.
“I’m just trying to keep my composure and be a professional,” said Ogden during his post-fight press conference (video courtesy of MMA Junkie). “Life happens. I’m no stranger to adversity. But this one hurts. I mean, records are records, numbers are numbers, but I really hope I get my win purse because I deserve it. I won all three rounds and we’re two minutes left in the fight, I’m in mount, in an arm triangle and if the ref wouldn’t have stopped the fight — even if the arm triangle didn’t submit him — I was in mount. I would’ve stayed in mount til the end of the fight. I would’ve won the fight and got paid.
“There’s a tremendous amount of sacrifice that goes into this game and the sport for me and my family and financial sacrifice,” continued Ogden. “I did nothing wrong. I came out and did my job. I fought as hard as I could. It was an exciting fight. It was a tough fight. And I won.”