NSCA Head Keith Kizer Responds To Criticism
Added on Dec 06, 2010 by John Petit in
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Keith Kizer, The head of the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC), has finally reacted to the outrage over the Nam Phan Vs Leonard Garcia Decision. In a fight where a large majority of viewers, and UFC Commentator Joe Rogan, felt that Nam Phan was the clear winner, it was Leonard Garcia who had his hand raised at the end of the night.
Rogan called for Kizer to clean house, and noted there were some good officials, but there also some incompetent officials. Rogan was calling for action to be taken on behalf of the fans, and MMA enthusiasts. “If Joe Rogan wants to get on the air and call people names, that’s his business. I’m not going waste my time responding to that, ” says Kizer. “They always say that ‘the UFC has nothing to do with judging.’ Well guess what, they’ve got a big fight coming up in Canada called Koscheck vs. Georges St. Pierre – the UFC and Marc Ratner are flying Tony Weeks up there as a judge. C’mon, Joe. How about some honesty? They’ve taken 90% of our officials with them overseas, as they should. That’s not a knock on Dana [White] and Marc [Ratner]; they know what they’re doing.”
Kizer also feels like the judges had this one wrong in his eyes, but he insists this fight wasn’t a robbery. “Yeah, I have a problem with how they scored the third round. Definitely. I mean, they’re both very good judges which makes it all the more surprising.” Kizer himself attended the event and scored the fight 30-27 for Nam Phan, he continued “You hear so many people cry ‘robbery’ about this and that. I get emails about it all of the time. I go back and watch the fight, and you say to yourself, ‘What? That wasn’t a robbery. The judges got it right! A lot of people were saying that about the Rampage vs. Machida fight. Even Dana White said that. You get people who love to overreact. Obviously there are people who want to feel superior than others, trash others. Maybe they are full of some self-hate, some self-pity… maybe that’s Rogan’s piece as well.”
Kizer syas he is ok with criticisms of the NSAC, but there is a time and a place for these comments, and its not ont live Pay Per View. “There are ways to criticize professionally, ethically, effectively and legitimately. But then there are ways where you are just trying to make yourself look better.”
When all is said done, Keith Kizer makes it clear that he standing behind his officials. He concluded “It’s like that one umpire who ruined that perfect game in baseball. You can’t be more wrong than that. But you ask the players and they think that, other than that, he’s one of the best umpires in the sport. He’s a top-5 umpire. You can’t screw up much worse than that, but you don’t get rid of him either.”
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December 7, 2:20 am
nah .. he’s wrong. the crowd and Joe are not saying it to make themselves look better or to feel superior than others, trash others … they’re saying it because of their MMA knowledge.
anyone who has watched enough MMA will say Nam Phan won the fight. Garcia threw a lot of punches but missed majority of them. he took the heavier damages throughout the fight. he was much more gassed in the end compare to Nam. it’s really an easy call to anyone with MMA knowledge.