“I think that the only honorable thing to do now, is for the UFC to give Drago a rematch against Nate.” - Ray Longo

Doctor's Eye
The following is an assessment by a physician who has been involved in MMA events for many years, and has participated as a ringside doctor in hundreds of MMA bouts. This doctor was also present at the Ultimate Fight Night event on August 6th of 2005.

A physician sitting ringside looks at several variables to determine whether a fight needs to be stopped either because a fighter has been injured, is frightened or markedly mismatched. Obviously, the level of tolerance varies in part based on whether a fight is an amateur fight or a pro fight.

When a fighter is knocked down, first we:
1. Observe to see whether the fighter is conscious or unconscious. In Pete Sells' case, he was definitely conscious.

When Pete Sell entered the Octagon he was calm and confident hoping to repeat his first UFC performance. Photography by Dave Mandel

2. If the fighter is conscious, we determine what his level of orientation is... does he remember the knockdown? Was his emotional response appropriate or inappropriate? Is he able to respond to commands or questions appropriately and without delay?
I do not recall the referee assessing Mr. Sell in any way before he called the fight. In fact, I think there was a race between Nate Quarry and referee Cecil Peoples to get to Mr. Sell first. The referee was moving even before the second punch was thrown.

3. What was the level of muscular coordination at the time of the event?
Was the fighter flaccid? (No muscle tone)? Was the fighter having a seizure? Was the fighter able to pull himself into an effective defensive posture?

I believe the latter to be the case in this particular fight. Mr. Sell is a well-trained ju-jitsu artist, (Pan Am Bronze Medallist) and, despite having a flash knockdown, was able to bring his knees up and his right knee across his opponent's chest before he could mount. He also appropriately “tied up" his opponent.

4. Physicians also assess whether the fighter had confidence or was outclassed or was markedly fatigued at the time of the knockdown. If a fighter does not have the ability to defend, or appears confused that his best efforts have not slowed down his opponent, a knockdown may be a reasonable way to stop a fight and save face for the fighter. I do not believe this is the case in this fight.

5. Physicians also assess the reactions of the corner men. Good corners are not necessarily good poker players, and when their combatants are in trouble, they definitely show it in their actions and in their coaching. Ray Longo looked confused and Matt Serra's tone was one of disbelief.

6. If a fighter returns to the corner, an assessment of level of fatigue, posture, tone, breathing, and whether the eyes appear focused are all things physicians look for.

7. Cuts that obscure vision, broken noses, dislocated joints and broken ribs
or hands are also indications to stop a fight.

None of these apply to the Sell - Quarry match.

Inconsistency
Lets face it folks, when most of you first saw Pete "Drago" Sell fighting in his debut at UFC 51, he wasn’t supposed to win. And even though he kept busy offensively, time was running out, as the commentators repeatedly told us how Baroni was ahead the entire time, Drago proved them wrong and was able to cut off their oxygen. He showed that despite being called in on short notice, at the age of twenty-two, he was in better shape and had skills broad enough to finish a tough UFC star brawler.

In UFC 53, when Matt Serra stepped up to the welterweight division challenging Karo Parysian and hoping for a shot at Matt Hughes, it seemed as if he was going to do it. In the first round he almost knocked out Karo, but referee Mario Yamasaki was patient enough to let Karo recompose himself, even though he sustained a series of blows to the head while on the ground trying to find his guard. He eventually came back and defeated a fatigued Serra in a judges’ decision, which didn’t quite add up. Two judges gave Karo every round despite the fact he had been floored and almost finished in the first. The other judge gave Serra the first round. 30-27, 30-27, 29-28. In my opinion, that was the only judge who called the fight correctly.

With lots of head motion and spunk Drago worked his way inside Nate Quarry's reach. Photography by Dave Mandel

When Pete Sell stepped up against Nate Quarry on Ultimate Fight Night on Spike TV, he seemed calm and at home, after all, he had already taken out an extremely dangerous Phil Baroni. But it was a slightly nervous looking Nate Quarry who got the big applause from the house. After all he was now a TV celebrity, while Pete Sell was a one-time veteran of the UFC, hungry for what he deserved. After the initial bell, Sell was smiling and precise in his initial jabbing, landing at least three good solid punches from the inside to Nate’s mug. Nate shot forth the combination of a right, which missed, and a left that landed, turning Drago’s chin and sending him to the ground. As Drago coiled up, defending, immediately referee Cecil Peoples called an end to the contest.

In the same Ultimate Fight Night event, on a night full of Ultimate Fighter stars, and a mass mainstream TV audience, a young Canadian named Patrick Cote landed a hell of a lot more strikes and had an impeccable guard which Ultimate fighter bad boy Chris Leben could not quite penetrate. In the end, with only an advantage of basic takedowns and riding the last round due to a missed judo throw by Cote, the judges gave the reality show fighter a split decision victory, in which one judge was probably too busy watching the ring girls. 28-29 29-27 30-27, this last judge was absolutely off the mark. So we must ask ourselves, what the hell is going on here?

Replay
After Nate Quarry replied with the left which caught Pete Sell’s chin and sent him to the canvas, it was not Sell who made an error from his guard causing the fight to end quite prematurely, and it wasn’t the fact that Quarry landed another right while Drago was on the ground.

The entire time one has to observe Pete’s eyes, as he goes to the floor, they are fixed on Nate, and although he doesn’t block the first right strike from above when he is face up, he is completely conscious, his knees are up and he begins pulling Quarry into his guard in order to avoid more strikes. That is until Mr. Cecil Peoples decided to become the protagonist, getting into the action by pulling Nate from behind his back. As all three are stacked up with Drago on the bottom clinching both Nate and now Cecil, the boxing state commissioned referee repeatedly tells Sell to let go, that “It's over" Drago immediately asks, “Why, why?” Cecil only repeats, “It’s over.” Since he is still defending and the fight hasn’t even begun, the camera begins cutting to a commercial as Pete’s lips utter, “That’s bullshit.” And indeed it was.

I thought to myself, this would be like when Marcus "Conan" Silveira fought Kazushi Sakuraba in the cage back in the adolescent days of the UFC. They called it a no contest and brought them back on for another match the same night.
But it didn’t happen on this Spike TV UF night, it was just my imagination.

Although Serra vs. Parysian ended with vastly different result, the initial moments of the first round had similar circumstances. Photography by Minori Yoshida

Referee Analysis

Lack of Protocol
The referee stopped the fight immediately after the initial blow, which did turn Sell’s chin and sent him to the floor. But he erred in that he never considered the bottom fighter’s mental awareness and the actual defenses employed by that fighter before calling it to an end. The bottom line is that he never checked on Sell’s condition.

Positioning
Mr. Peoples was standing behind Nate Quarry’s back when he stopped the fight unable to even see Drago’s face. He began grabbing The Rock before he had landed his second strike, once again not assessing the condition of the man underneath, and thus assuming that he couldn’t defend. A referee must never assume anything he must first investigate, look deeper into the matter and get a close look.

Proper Positioning
In any serious professional sport, the positioning of the referees or judges or umpires is the most important element in order to appropriately view and judge the action. Whether it’s a lines man in tennis or soccer, an umpire in baseball, or a referee in football, it’s all about their positioning within the action.

In this case, inside the Octagon, which is larger than a boxing ring, the referee failed to get a close and clear look at the bottom fighter’s reactions, by simply going around to the other side and kneeling closer to the action (North of Pete’s or Nate’s heads).

Up Close
We must contrast this stoppage to the Mike Swick vs. Gideon Ray stoppage, in which referee Herb Dean clearly followed protocol by shifting positions and getting a close and clear look at the fact that Gideon was disoriented, not really defending well, eating strikes and not looking sharp. He identified a medical or physical risk and that was the decisive factor. The bottom line here is that this referee did assess the downed fighters condition.

Drago initiated and delivered a solid straight to a Quarry who was rather static. Photography by Dave Mandel

Rewind
Going back a moment, I think it is important to compare and contrast the Matt Serra vs. Karo Parysian fight. I would argue that Karo suffered a more severe blow than Drago, yet the referee did not believe a stoppage was necessary. The Heat could not comment on that blow later on at the press conference that means he suffered an instance of unconsciousness. On the other hand, with a much clearer camera angle, we can see that Pete Sell is fully aware. What I would like to point out with this comparison is the inconsistency once again in referee’s general practices inside the Octagon. I’m not saying that the Parisyan vs. Serra bout should have been stopped, on the contrary I think the Quarry vs. Sell bout should have continued. But here we have two extremes experienced by both sensei and deshi.

Judges n Referees
No, that portly animated character wearing the rubber gloves and who stopped the Quarry vs. Sell fight was not Mickey Mouse.
As soon as I realized that Mr. Cecil Peoples would be the referee for the bout between Quarry and Sell, for some reason I got this really uncomfortable feeling. Many people I know felt the same way. It wasn’t purely a gut feeling, but the fact that we’ve seen this man in action in UFC bouts far too many times, and one has to wonder what this boxing judge and referee really knows about properly overseeing an MMA contest? What are this man’s qualifications?

PRIDE judges and referees, although not perfect, are however more consistent in their decisions and work directly for the PRIDE organization. I believe that this is due to the fact that they must attend rules meetings, something that rarely happens here in the United States. Thus they are familiar with the rules of the organization, and work consistently with the organization event after event.

PRIDE also does an after fight video review to make sure that the judging and refereeing was correct. Here they also review fighters who violate rules, such as Ricardo Arona who was fined after fighting Sakuraba. Only once though has PRIDE deemed a fight a no contest after the fact, and this was when Igor Vovchanchyn kneed Mark Kerr to the head while in a four-point position.
On the other hand the referees in UFC fights are sanctioned state by state. There is therefore inconsistency in the qualifications of a local pool. I think the fighters are much better schooled in MMA than certain referees, especially those who never previously participated in any aspect of MMA.

Maybe Zuffa should have a reality show called “The Ultimate Referee.” They could not only get them in shape, teach them protocol and give them a sharper eye, but they could also take on the winners of the “Ultimate Judge.” And to guarantee some viewers, we could bring in some fighters who have lost controversial decisions in the UFC and they could be the judges and referees. I think I’m on to something here.

Sells expression said it all before this controversial decision was delivered. Does this look like a fighter who was TKO'd? If you compare his face to Karo's there are no visible traces of facial damage. Photography by Dave Mandel

But Seriously Folks… Ain’t That A Shame
The Quarry vs. Sell battle could have been a great MMA battle, but instead only contributed another dud to what was an evening a couple of notches below a typical UFC event. It could have been a great fight and it’s a shame that we as an audience in TV land got cut off from some great action. Lets hope they didn’t leave a bad impression.

Not to take anything away from Nate Quarry, but when they asked him if the stoppage was premature he had already been deemed a victor. He could have answered the question instead of giving such a diplomatic response and passing on the responsibility to the referee. He’s definitely right, but why didn’t he really answer the question?

After a fighter trains so hard for so many months in such a vast array of skills, it must be horribly disappointing to suffer your first “loss” in MMA so suddenly and controversially. Taking nothing away from Nate Quarry who is a gentleman and a talented athlete, even he must be noticing the big “?” that the referee left imprinted in his “victory” over Pete Sell. Although Quarry is eleven years older, I don’t believe he is necessarily that much more experienced in MMA than Pete Sell. After all, Drago is a Jiu-jitsu man, and this was where he was supposed to be most comfortable, in the guard. As Ray Longo said, the only honorable thing to do now is to give Drago a rematch. After all he was still lucidly cursing the referee as the man with too much authority stopped the fight.

And there is the rub. We must now ask ourselves whether or not a referee has too much control in the outcome of any MMA fight? In Soccer, if the linesman makes a bad call, the head referee can veto him, thus the same needs to be true in MMA. The judges should be able to veto the referee, and thus, do as they did when Sakuraba debuted in the UFC back in the days. But then again the problem is, whose watching the judges?

Other Photos & Official Result of Ultimate Fight Night >>

Pre-Ultimate Fight Night Interview with Pete "Drago" Sell >>