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Referee Marc Goddard
doesn’t want the slightest personal involvement with fighters whose
bouts he officiates.

While refereeing is one of the toughest parts of all sports, combat
sports referees arguably have a heavier burden on their shoulders
due to the lethal nature of the sport. Hence, to avoid any conflict
of interest, referees at the highest level are not allowed to coach
fighters.

This has also stopped Goddard from refereeing the fights of UFC
welterweight champion Leon
Edwards. The Scottish referee hasn’t been seriously involved in
coaching for a while now other than a weekly class at his friend’s
gym. However, Goddard revealed that he was Edwards’ first MMA coach
back when “Rocky” was just an amateur. To avoid risking allegations
of favoritism as well the predicament of having to take a call
against his former pupil, Goddard deliberately avoids all of
Edwards’ fights and will continue to do so.

“You never saw me ref Leon
Edwards in the UFC and you never will,” Goddard said on the
OverDogs podcast with Mike Perry.
“Why? Because I was Leon
Edwards’ first coach, MMA. Way, way, way back when he was just
an amateur… Who knew then when Leon first walked into that gym as a
raw amateur, a raw novice with no experience. Now look at him, UFC
welterweight champion of the world. But you never saw me referee
him and you never will. Because we’ll just keep it out of the way.
I just don’t want any hassle. And I don’t want to be put in a
predicament where I’m making a call that could go against him. So,
it’s both ways.”

Another instance when Goddard deliberately avoided officiating a
fight was Israel
Adesanya’s title rematch against Alex
Pereira. Goddard was the third man inside the Octagon when “The
Last Stylebender” lost his middleweight title to Pereira in their
first outing at UFC 281 in November 2022. However, Goddard asked
not to be assigned their rematch at UFC 287 the next year, as he
didn’t want Adesanya to have negative flashbacks from the first
loss.

“Do you remember when Israel
Adesanya fought Pereira for the second time in Miami? I
specifically requested not to do that fight,” Goddard said.
“Because obviously I had done the first. And the reason I requested
not to do that fight was cause I was thinking about Izzy… I
actually removed myself because what I didn’t want to do was – I
was thinking of a fighter then, this is his night, it’s all about
him and I didn’t want to walk into that dressing room and him to
have any form of negative connotation or something like that. So, I
just thought the right thing to do and the fairest thing to do by
him is just stay out of the fight, give it to another ref. And I
requested from the commission not to do it.”

IMAK ADMIN

By IMAK ADMIN

Internationaler Kampfkunst und Kampfsport Kleinanzeiger