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John Morgan is demanding transparency from the state commissions after a scary situation at Fury FC 76.
On March 24th, Fury Fighting Championship held an event in San Antonio, Texas. Due to the UFC San Antonio event the next day, fans and media members were in attendance to enjoy some regional MMA action. Unfortunately, disaster struck in the main event.
In the fourth round, Edgar Chairez locked in a triangle choke, leading to Gianni Vazquez going unconscious. Referee Frank Collazo didn’t notice Vazquez passing out and the fight continued for over twenty seconds before he woke up and tapped to the armbar transition.
The MMA community has been enraged by Collazo’s inability to assess the situation at Fury FC 76. MMA journalist John Morgan was furious and had this to say on Twitter:
“Absolutely horrible. Moments like these are exactly why we need more transparency and communication from commissions. What steps will be taken to ensure this never happens again? “Trust us, we got this” isn’t enough. The next two athletes under this man’s watch deserve better.”
Morgan wasn’t the only MMA media member to voice his anger. Ariel Helwani re-posted the video on Twitter and had this to say:
“This is one of the worst jobs by a ref in the history of refereeing. What in the world. As reckless as it gets.”
Fury FC releases a statement regarding for referee incident
MMA referees and judges are assigned by the state commission, leaving the promotion without control over who oversees their fights. With that said, Fury FC had no choice but to address the dangerous situation that happened on Friday night. The Texas-based MMA promotion posted a statement on Instagram that said:
“It is the referee’s job to protect the fighter when the fighter cannot protect him or herself. In last night’s main event, the referee failed to do this. While the job of a referee is one of the hardest to do in this sport, the need for proper and continued training would help to alleviate things like this incident. We do not hire, train or select refs for our shows, but we would be more than willing to lead a revamp and overhaul of the reffing and judging selection and training process.”
Frank Collazo’s impact on the MMA world this week isn’t done. The controversial referee has been assigned as a judge for the UFC San Antonio event. It’ll be intriguing to see if Collazo can begin redeeming himself with accurate scorecards.
