Dana White Criticizes Dan Miragliotta’s Reffing

Dan Miragliotta calls the action in the Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Thiago Tavares fight

White upset with bad reffing of Miragliotta

Dana White has never been a man to shy away from speaking his mind when it comes to the performance of a referee or a judge, so when Dan Miragliotta appeared to have blown two calls in two seperate fights on Saturday night, he was going to hear about it from the UFC president.

During the preliminary action of the UFC on FX 7 card, Yuri Alcantara took the back of Pedro Nobre, flattened him out, and then proceeded to rein down punches. Upon seeing this, Miragliotta stepped in to warn Alcantara about striking the back of his opponent's head. When he continued to do so, Miragliotta stopped the fight and declared the bout a no contest. As Alcantara sat against the cage, upset with the result, Nobre remained face down on the mat, clutching his head.

However upon further review, it looked as though the punches were indeed legal and that the hardest blow was actually an elbow to the ear of Nobre. When replay was shown, White, who was recovering from surgery and not at the event, took to twitter to voice his displeasure with the reffing and the fighter:

That was BS!!! Pedro is an award winning actor and horrible call by Dan M

— Dana White (@danawhite) January 19, 2013

Later in the night, during the opening bout of the main card on FX, Khabib Nurmagomedov knocked down Thiago Tavares with a lunging left hand, and pounced on him for the finish. However Tavares seemed to have have taken more punishment than he should have, as he ate a total of 14 unanswered elbows and hammer fists.

White, again, voiced his displeasure:

Ok that is officially the END of Dan M!!!! Guys head is straight up his ass 2 night!!!! 17 vicious strikes!!!! After he was already hurt

— Dana White (@danawhite) January 20, 2013

Unfortunately for White, the fighters, and the fans, there is little to nothing he can do over the referees that are used. The UFC has no say in who calls the bouts, as the regulating athletic commission is assigned with that job. However going forward, as we see more blown calls and late stoppages such as these, it will be interesting as to how the commission handles the regulating and teaching of officials.

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