but who wants to be the enterprising soul that buys it and uploads it for all to see? ;)

I listened to Dana’s thoughts on this during the press conference, and after watching the GIF, I’m going to have to agree with him. It’s hard to fault Lavigne when Nover looks to go limp on the mat.

Phillipe Nover talks loss at UFC 98 (video)

I have issue with Lavigne being indecisive. Similar to the Brown/Sell affair, he just didn’t make the call with conviction. The last thing we need is an official who’s unsure of himself.

People seem perfectly okay with a referee stopping a fight, restarting it and then stopping it again when it’s clear that the losing party is now totally okay. You can’t stop and start fights and this guy has now done it twice. It’s just bizarre.

if he stops the fight when Nover goes limp after taking a punch…fine it may have looked early…but whatever…safety and all that. But he stops it, lets them fight and as Nover recovers and stands up he goes “oh wait, yeah…stop it!” If you decide to let them fight you don’t then stop the fight once the hurt guy looks 100% fine.

Bad for Yves, bad for the fighters, bad for the UFC, and bad for the sport.

After the browbeating he took from Dana and fans after the last incident, I would have thought he would have come in saying, “No matter what mistake I make, it won’t be that one again.” And year he went and did it again.

The ref should not be restraining fighters or otherwise interfering with the action unless the fight is stopped. It was almost as if Yves abdicated his responsibility when he saw Nover was OK and Bradley didn’t want to stop—“OK, you guys can keep going if you want. I’ll just stand over here.”

Yves, ordinarily a great ref, has a case of the Yips. He needs a refresher, and it would benefit the other refs as well to be told clearly: If you step in, the fight is stopped. Period.

Yves just needs to be more forceful with his stoppages. Just fucking bodycheck Bradley like BJM used to do. It would have been fine if he did that when Nover went limp, but when he stops it and just lets Bradly keep going it turns into this. He was out of position too, he needs to step in between fighters when he’s stopping, not bear hug them from behind.

Was Yves the ref for the Hughes-Serra fight? Because whoever that was should have stood that fight up like 30 times.

Lavigne was in the perfect position to stop the fight as soon as Nover got K.O.’d (which he definitely did even though he was able to wake up once his face smashed on the canvas) he grabbed Bradley (thats the end of the fight.)

His mistake was not being more forceful with Bradley in separating the fighters.

Also, his intervention did keep Bradley from landing another right hook into Nover’s head as Nover was pushing off the ground. He was only able to spin to his back (which was very impressive) was because Bradley was being pushed off of his attack.