John McCarthy: Dan Miragliotta gave unfair advantage to Tom Nolan vs. Renato Moicano

In the wake of the most recent UFC main event, you’ll be hard-pressed to find people standing up for the referee.

The UFC Fight Night 292 headliner at the Meta APEX in Las Vegas this past Saturday was won by Tom Nolan (12-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC), who delivered a thrilling third-round TKO of former lightweight title challenger Renato Moicano (21–81 MMA, 13-8 UFC). But the result immediately took a backseat to how the fighters arrived at that moment to begin with.

Advertisement

After Moicano controlled the bulk of the first round by taking Nolan down and taking his back, they found themselves in the same situation in the second. Moicano tied Nolan up with a body triangle, then alternated between throwing strikes and looking for angles for a rear-naked choke, a finish he has nearly a dozen of on his resume.

The fight stalled briefly, and after a period of roughly eight seconds, referee Dan Miragliotta stood the fighters up. There was no major outcry from Moicano in the moment, but the outcry from the broadcast team and from the MMA world at large was swift: Miragliotta absolutely miffed in standing the fighters up by taking a highly dominant position away from Moicano.

Moments later, Nolan hurt Moicano and ended the round with a huge momentum shift. In the third, he kept the pressure on and eventually put Moicano away with punches. But the question on most minds was if Nolan ever would have had a chance to win that way if not for Miragliotta’s decision the round before.

Longtime MMA pioneering referee John McCarthy thinks Miragliotta changed the outcome of the fight, and he’s not even sure it happened for a good reason, if the reason was to make the fight more exciting.

Advertisement

“When you look at why did Dan stand them up, I think Dan looked at it as, ‘We’ve had this position now a good portion of this fight and nothing’s happened – let’s get some action into it,'” McCarthy said Monday on the “Weighing In” podcast he hosts with former fighter Josh Thomson.

“He stands them up, and it’s completely unfair to one fighter – Moicano. Moicano earned that position. He worked for that position. It’s not an easy position to get to, and once he gets to it, it’s his to have.”

Miragliotta, in name value, is considered one of the top officials in the sport. Speculation in the MMA community about why a veteran referee like him would make a call that seems to be near-universally derided as an egregious error quickly turned to the potential he was influenced by fans in the APEX booing Moicano’s advantageous position out of a perception he wasn’t interested in a prototypically exciting fight.

The problem, McCarthy was quick to point out, is that’s not the official’s job, and Miragliotta wound up making a fight that started fair into one that patently was not for one fighter.

Advertisement

“(A referee) cannot make a bad fight good, but you can definitely make a good fight bad,” McCarthy said. “I’m not saying this ended up being a bad fight – it was exciting with what Nolan did (to get the finish). But he was given the opportunity to be in positions he never should have been in … to have the ability to get out of something that he needs to have the skill set to get out of.

“We don’t give advantages to one fighter over another. (Miragliotta) gave a great advantage to Tom Nolan, and took an advantage away from Moicano. I know Dan was not trying to be unfair. He was just looking getting action going toward the fight. But in reality, people can look at it and say you were unfair, and they’re right. It’s an unfair advantage you gave to one fighter over another.”

As for the notion Moicano was stalling, or not working toward ending the fight, if that’s indeed what influenced the fans, and then played a factor in Miragliotta’s decision, McCarthy can’t even say the Brazilian submission artist had reached a point of being inactive enough to warrant the standup.

“(The fighter’s) job is to always try to work toward finishing the fight,” McCarthy said. “If you go back and look, the last minute he was on Nolan’s back before the stand-up, he had to have thrown 20, 25 strikes. Why is he doing that?

Advertisement

“He’s working toward a finish: Which is the one that’s going to cause Nolan a problem, and now he makes a mistake and the choke gets slipped in?”

Moicano never got to find out after Miragliotta stood him up. He lost for the third time in four fights, including a lightweight title shot less than two years ago. Nolan took advantage of the opportunity Miragliotta gave him and won for the sixth straight time.

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: John McCarthy: Dan Miragliotta gave unfair advantage to Tom Nolan vs. Renato Moicano