On a busy weekend in MMA, no moment caused more controversy than
referee Mike Beltran’s decision to wave off the flyweight
championship clash between Juliana
Velasquez and Liz
Carmouche.
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Carmouche claimed the title when she landed a takedown, moved to
the mounted crucifix position and began dropping elbows on her
opponent late in Round 4 of the
Bellator 278 headliner on Friday night. Though the strikes
didn’t appear to be especially damaging, Velasquez had no means to
defend herself in the period’s waning seconds, which prompted
Beltran to step in on her behalf at the 4:47 mark.
Velasquez immediately protested the ruling in the aftermath of the
bout. While action was limited in the initial three rounds, the
ex-champ dropped her adversary in the second round and was ahead on
all three judges’ scorecards.
“What an odd night!!” Velasquez wrote on Instagram. “I dominated
the fight, I dropped her twice on her ass, judges had me up 3-0 and
the fight is stopped just like that? She didn’t even put a scratch
on my face! I have no idea what the referee saw, but this was a
total bulls—t! Come on!!! I am disgusted! [Scott Coker], [Bellator
MMA] let’s run it back. And I want this result overturned.”
Not surprisingly, Carmouche disagreed with Velasquez and felt that
Beltran acted in the best interest of the losing fighter.
“I think he stepped in at the right time,” Carmouche said during
the Bellator 278 post-fight press conference. “I think if he let it
continue, it could’ve been a broken orbital. It could’ve been her
going unconscious. I think when he stepped in, it was the right
thing to do to protect the fighter.”
Coker, meanwhile, took a diplomatic approach when weighing in on
Beltran’s ruling.
“I would never want to be a referee or judge,” he said. “That’s
something that, hey, those guys are professionals of what they do
at the highest level. We travel with the A-crew. He saw it how he
saw it, and that’s something that you should ask him next time you
see him.”
While Coker refused to criticize the officiating in the bout, he
does seem open to the idea of an immediate rematch between
Carmouche and Velasquez.
“For me, I don’t mind running that fight back,” Coker said. “I
think the ladies would definitely scrap again. To me, I don’t mind
running that fight back. Believe me, I’m getting calls from the
manager and this, but there’s really nothing we can do. The fight
is over. It’s already done. Let’s move on. It’s something that
we’ll have conversations with both of them when we get back. Then
we’ll start building the future for both ladies.”
Carmouche has won four consecutive fights since signing with
Bellator after parting ways with the UFC, while Velasquez suffered
her first career defeat in 13 professional outings.