Paddy Pimblett’s latest outing was controversially scored in his favor by several of the judges. One judge in particular is known for making sketchy decisions. Just couple days before the UFC event, he was judging at Bellator and gave all 5 rounds to the losing party while the other two judged 48-47 in favor of Raufeon Stots. This huge discrepancy and the distance he had to travel to judge both cards invited a lot of scrutiny.
Crosby spoke on that topic on Chael Sonnen’s You’re Welcome Podcast.
Crosby explained:
“There is a system and protocols in place for officials to comment on fights that they have judged. And I respect that. There is a process in place for any fighter who is interested in information about how their fight was judged. That information is based upon the officials using the scoring criteria.”
“Any fight, not just this past weekend [Pimblett’s fight was two weeks ago] but any fighter is welcome to contact the administrators and ask them about that process. As far as me commenting on particular fights right now, or maybe ever, that is up to the discretion of the administrators. That’s not me trying to duck out of hard questions about me judging fights, but there is a process and I respect the process.”
When asked explicitly about his choice to travel across the country to judge a second event only hours after his controversial Bellator performance, Crosby babbled about the “working class.”
He made no specific comments addressing Pimblett vs. Gordon or the Raufeon Stots vs. Danny Sabatello questionable judging from the previous night, for which he is also receiving criticism.
This is in contrast to how Francis Ngannou’s coach Eric NIcksick described a zoom session held by the NSAC a few months back between MMA judges and coaches.
“we actually had a Zoom meeting a few months back and I was Nevada State Athletic Commission put together a Zoom meeting with with a bunch of judges and and a handful of of of MMA coaches and the job with that was kind of like for us to be able to sit down and actually talk and mend some fences and ask them questions”
“The number one outlier in that Zoom meeting was Doug Crosby. But I didn’t want to be there. You know, his his he felt combative in the meeting like he did. He thought like, I don’t know, I guess like he was above this meeting for for for us, you know, that’s the way I came.”
“I felt and not only myself, but the other coaches that were involved in that meeting. And it was pretty evident. And then, you know, then he wanted to come to the gym after and explain his version of judging. I was like, well, you can’t you’re you’re you’re in a zoom meeting with all your superiors. Why do you need to come on your own to come to talk to us about what you see and what you feel is right in judging?”
Raufeon Stots also summed up the issue succinctly during his appearance on the MMA Hour:
“My thing is, when I’ve been reading up on him, he he’s saying he got his own set of criteria that he judging a fight to. Like the fighters should. We should know the criteria that you’re judging the fight before we before we fought “