The Top 10 Worst Referees In MMA Of All Time

Being a referee in MMA is not at all easy. When compared to other sports, MMA referees have to make decisions extremely quickly. In soccer, a penalty can be awarded or taken away in a matter of minutes. MMA on the other hand has decisions made in seconds, and sometimes split-seconds.

Not only this, but MMA has extremely severe consequences compared to other sports. Whilst a win and a loss may mean the same thing for a team in any sport, taking away a touchdown isn’t going to cause life changing injuries. However, if an MMA referee fails to stop a fight on time, it could mean permanent brain damage, or even worse.

MMA also differs in America due to various state athletic commissions. Depending on the state, the UFC may not be allowed to bring in its own top quality referees, in which case they only have a small pool of state referees to choose from. Whilst this isn’t inherently bad, you can quickly realise that there could be a lot of bad officials within this small selection.

The Job Of An MMA Referee

In general, if you’ve watched a main event fight and can’t remember who the referee was, he’s likely done an excellent job. There are very few situations in MMA where the referee has had a standout performance and they typically should not be the center of attention. In fairness, there are rare exceptions to this rule where the referee can see something everyone else has missed, but this is not common at all.

As you’d expect, this list is filled with a lot of men (and some women) who would rather have the fight be about them than anything else. They may appreciate and respect the fighters, but they also think that the camera is there to show what a great referee is. This causes a variety of issues such as early stoppages, late stoppages and general stupid behaviour that referees should not partake in.

All sports are filled with bad referees, but unfortunately MMA is one of the few sports where some referees try to make a name for themselves nad have silly gimmicks in order to be noticed.

The 10 Worst Referees In MMA

Jon Schorle

More well known as a fairly solid boxing referee, Jon Schorle’s performances in the cage weren’t too bad, other than one terrible moment of judgement overshadowing his entire career.

At WEC 19, Schorle was distracted by recovering a mouthpiece that got knocked out of a fighters mouth. During this pivotal point in the match, Schorle actually turned away from the fight and picked the mouthpiece from the floor whilst Alfonso (the downed fighter) was receiving vicious ground and pound. As a result of this, he ended up taking 2-3 more blows to the head which could have easily been avoided.

Todd Anderson

Todd Anderson mostly referees in Bellator so UFC fans will not be too familiar with him. However, he does have an extremely memorable performance in the Holly Holm vs Germaine de Randamie at UFC 208.

As mentioned, his performance was the most memorable of the night, but for all of the wrong reasons. During the fight there were 3 late hits from de Randamie, which removes the element of doubt behind accidental strikes.

Of course, Anderson cannot control the fighters, but the fact he gave de Randamie 3 warnings claiming “if that happens again we’re looking at a point” is beyond stupid. A person who cannot follow through basic refereeing protocol and make a logical decision should be no where near a UFC main event and probably not refereeing at all.

Jeff Malott

Malott was considered to be a solid referee until a moment of madness. If you are able to watch the fight between Pat Curran and Joe Warren you will be left thinking what was the referee being paid for?

In a barrage of punches and knees that lasts almost 30 seconds, Joe Warren is clearly out of it and not able to defend himself at all. His arms are outstretched like a zombie whilst Malott watches on. He has countless opportunities to end the fight, but instead lets Warren take a total of and unbelievable 44 unanswered strikes before he goes unconscious.

Len Koivisto

A boxing referee, Len Koivisto clearly does not understand submissions and therefore should not be anywhere near an MMA fight. This fact did not stop him getting hired at Ax Combat : Execution in which he refereed a fight between Kim Couture and Sheila Bird.

Bird had Couture in an extremely obvious leg scissors choke which put her unconscious. Koivisto did not understand that this was a possibility as Couture was staring at the ceiling with an expressionless face for at least 10 seconds before stopping the fight.

It turns out that Koivisto had previously failed the John McCarthy C.O.M.M.A.N.D course, which is no surprise.

Mike England

Due to the state athletic comission of Missouri requiring their own referees to be hired, Mike England will likely be on any high level fight card in the state.

At UFC on Fox 24, England let Nathan Coy go unconscious for a good few seconds from a guillotine choke, despite having the best view in the entire stadium and being able to look directly in to his eyes.

His knowledge of MMA rules is also questionable since he was shouting at Tonya Evinger in her fight against Yana Kunitskya. During this fight Evinger was in an armbar and stepped on her opponents head to escape it. England interrpreted this very obvious step as a kick to a downed opponent. Eventually due to the incompetence of England, this armbar victory was rightfully overturned to a no contest.

Cecil Peoples

One of the strangest referees in the entirity of martial arts. Cecil Peoples seems to think that the crowd have come to watch him and not the fighters. From his stupidly childish air kick to start a match, to his over the top diving stoppages which cause more harm than good, it is shocking how someone like Peoples got to the highest levels of refereeing.

Who ever thought that “Let’s Dance” was a good catchphrase to begin a serious fight?

In fairness to Peoples, he is not a referee who was known for particularly early or late stoppages, especially when compared to other names on this list. However, diving in to the fighters is often completely unecessary and can hurt an unconscious fighter more than it can help them.

Jerin Valel

Certainly not the worst referee on the list, Valel is best known for starting his matches by telling fighters to go back to the cage, even when they are standing as far back as possible.

His infamy stems from two major incidents at two different events, the first of which was UFC 184 with Mark Munoz vs Roan Carneiro. Munoz was in a very deep rear naked choke and had gone unconscious. Valel had the best view in the house and was looking right at his face when he went out yet did not stop the fight for a good 5 seconds afterwards.

At UFC 215, Valel had another bizarre performance yet again. Gilbert Melendez was getting kicked to pieces with very obvious welds on his legs and limping to his corner after each round. Valel was not happy that Melendez kept falling to the ground and did not seem to understand that this was not through choice. After barely being able to stand Melendez somehow made it to the final bell in a unanimous decision loss that could have been stopped after the second round.

Kim Winslow

The first woman to ever referee a fight in the UFC, but many people rightfully wonder how and why?

Thankfully, the now retired Winslow cannot make anymore crazy decisions and ruin any more fights. Jan Finney vs Cris Cyborg was one of the most one sided fights ever, which featured a point taken for non-existant strikes to the back of the head, as well as an absolute beating in a match that could and should have been stopped several times over. However, as Winslow was refereeing, she wanted to make sure that we all knew this and featured herself heavily in a match that should have been exceptionally easy to referee.

Her lack of ability was confirmed in Strikeforce with King Mo vs Lorenz Larkin when she made the fighters stand up despite Lawal dishing out heavy ground and pound. Even members of the audience knew the fight should have been stopped as a TKO rather than a reset.

Mario Yamasaki

Yet another referee who wants the camera to be on him, especially when he is making a ridiculous heart sign with his hands before every fight. Yamasaki is known for early stoppages, late stoppages and everything in between.

One of the best examples of this was Shevchenko vs Cachoeira, which was a mistmatch from the get go. Yamasaki was happy to stand and watch ground and pound with nothing being offered as resistance. To put this in to numbers, Shevchenko landed 200 unanswered strikes before the fight was stopped in round 2.

Another, perhaps even more puzzling decision happened in Lee vs Chiesa, where Yamasaki stopped the fight during a rear naked choke, despite there being no sign of unconsciousness and no sign of a tap either.

Sadly, it took far too long for Yamasaki to be blacklisted by the UFC after numerous incidents which haven’t even been mentioned here as they could take up an entire article on their own.

Steve Mazzagatti

The top contender for the WROAT (worst referee of all time), Steve Mazzagatti is thankfully retired and is best known for not stopping fights. This has been taken to such an extreme that fans began to call him Steve “if he dies he dies” Mazzagatti.

Mazzagatti has such poor knowledge of positions that there have been incidents where fighters have put their opponents unconscious and then let go of the submission voluntarily as he would not stop the fight. This has happened at least two times (which were caught on film), which raises the possibility that this happened many more times at non-filmed lower level promotions.

The most high profile incident was when Frank Mir kneebarred Brock Lesnar and Mazzagatti waited for around 5-6 taps before he instructed Mir to let go of the kneebar.

There are numerous other occasians where Mazzagatti let fighters take tens of unanswered punches to the head before stopping fights. It is really mentally challenging to think about why this man became a referee in the first place and why he was continued to do his job so badly for so many years.