Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
UFC President Dana White was not pleased with the officiating in the Jessica-Rose Clark and Sarah Alpar fight.
The stoppage in the Jessica-Rose Clark and Sarah Alpar fight at UFC Vegas 11 left a lot of people upset, including UFC President Dana White.
Early in the third round, Clark threw a knee to the face of Alpar, which was immediately thought to be an illegal strike considering Alpar looked to be grounded. Referee Chris Tognoni called a pause in the action and used instant replay to figure out whether Alpar was truly grounded. Once Tognoni deemed that she was not actually grounded and the strike was legal, he asked if Alpar wanted to continue to fight. She said yes, and the fight was restarted in the same spot.
A few moments later, Clark finished what she started and pummeled Alpar to officially pick up a third-round technical knockout victory. The end of the fight brought about plenty of confusion and frustration, as many believed it should have been stopped right after the knee in question landed.
Both Clark and White agree with this sentiment.
During his post-fight scrum with media, White was adamant in his belief that the fight between Clark and Alpar should have been stopped, especially after seeing the kind of damage Alpar was wearing on her face.
“The fight should have been over,” said White. “That fight should have been over just like last week. She got finished. She got stopped. If you have to jump in and look at her and do anything — her nose was broken, you know? It was a finish. That should’ve been a finish.”
White is referring to the controversial stoppage in the fight between Ed Herman and Mike Rodriguez at UFC Vegas 10. With two situations playing out in very similar fashion in back-to-back weeks, White agrees there are changes that must happen so this does not continue to happen.
“I know [UFC Senior Vice President of Regulatory Affairs] Marc Ratner is all over this. It’s just something that needs to be worked out. When you get stopped — and these kids are so tough and durable. That poor little girl fought her ass off, again, after she was able to continue. It just needs to be fixed. They gotta figure this out.”
The Nevada State Athletic Commission did release a statement after the fight stating that Tognoni handled the situation in the correct way. Per the rules, a fight that is paused can be restarted again after replay was used.
For her part in the fight, Clark also thought it was over once she saw the look on Alpar’s face.
“I could see it on her face,” said Clark (video by MMA Fighting). “I could see it. I apologized to her team after the fight because it shouldn’t have kept going. There was one point where I was trying to submit her because I was like, ‘F—k. I don’t want to keep hurting her’, you know? So, I was going for the head [and] arm choke and then she wasn’t giving it up. She didn’t give up an inch. Not for one second. But I wanted to submit her because I didn’t want to keep hurting her as bad as I was, but she didn’t want that to happen so f—k it. I’m gonna keep throwing elbows.”
