This Day in MMA: The Hands of the Judges

One year ago today - August 2nd 2009 - undefeated Brazilian Marlon Sandro faced Japanese Michihiro Omigawa in World Victory Road's Sengoku 9 event as the final round of the Sengoku Featherweight Grand Prix.  The four finalists were Sandro, Omigawa, current world #7 featherweight Hatsu Hioki, and current world #10 featherweight Masanori Kanehara.  The two winners would meet later that night to determine the Sengoku Featherweight Champion.

The onetime journeyman Omigawa - who had lost four of his first five fights and seven of his first eleven - was a Cinderella story going into the finals.  He had decisioned the tough current world #11 featherweight LC Davis in the Grand Prix opening round, then TKO'd Nam Phan in the second round to book passage to the GP Finals at Sengoku 9.  He had built momentum with these unlikely results and was something of a "rebel favorite" (famously yelling to the crowd after a previous fight, "everyone who didn't believe in me...f*ck you").

Sandro on the other hand brought a different history into the fight.  He was 14-0 with roughly equal numbers of stoppages by (T)KO and submissions, to go with a roughly 50% decision rate.  He was picked by most pundits going into the Grand Prix as the second most likely to win (Hatsu Hioki being the prohibitive favorite).

What transpired in their bout on August 2nd would harken MMA fans back to the controversial "loss" meted out to Fedor Emelienenko vs. Tsuyoshi Kosaka in a RINGS event in 2000.  Prior to the recent loss to Fabricio Werdum, this represented the only loss on Emelianenko's record, and a highly controversial one.  Kohsaka cut Fedor seconds into the fight with an illegal shot - an elbow.  Emelianenko was unable to continue due to bleeding from the cut, but with the fight occurring within a tournament format, a situation which in any other setting would have been ruled a no contest or potentially even a DQ loss for Kohsaka was ruled a loss to Emelianenko, as someone had to advance in the tournament.  Most fans rightly realized that Fedor had never legitimately lost a fight until the recent Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Werdum event.

The incorrectness of the Sandro-Omigawa result at Sengoku was eerily similar.  Following a three-round fight contested mostly on the feet - although Sandro had threatened Omigawa with a couple of submissions on the ground - the fight went to the judges.  Two of the three judges scored the fight a 30-30 draw, with one judge awarding Sandro a 30-29 victory.  Under most circumstances the fight would have been ruled a majority draw; however, as with the Fedor situation from 9 years earlier, this being a tournament format there was a "must decide" rule in place which stated that in the event of a draw, the judges had to name a winner to advance.  Despite the fact that the criteria was that the fighter with the most overt efforts to finish the fight - which would seem to have been Sandro with a couple submission attempts standing out from a back-and-forth roughly even battle on the feet - both of the "drawn" judges awarded Omigawa the "must-win" advance nod, assessing Marlon Sandro his first (and thus far only) career loss.  So in a fight in which two judges declared the result a draw, and one saw the fight for Sandro, the perhaps-incomprehensible judging somehow awarded Omigawa a win.

Sandro was visibly shocked as the result was announced, as was much of the MMA world. It seemed clear to most watching (including Bloody Elbow, Sherdog, ProMMANow, and others) that the fight was a clear winner for Sandro, and that the result was unjust - more so both because it was his first career blemish and also prevented him from fighting for the Featherweight Title.

Sherdog, never one to mince words in live play-by-play coverage, summed it up thus:

Two judges rule the bout a 30-30 draw, but ludicrously side with Omigawa in their "must decision." Thus, Marlon Sandro is unjustly cheated out of what should be a clear unanimous decision. Omigawa advances to the finals.

Sandro's management formally appealed the result, but it was not overturned.  The loss still stands as Marlon Sandro's only career loss - he has gone on to win the next three straight by first-round KO.  Sandro in the end took out a brutal revenge on Masanori Kanehara, who went on to defeat Omigawa in the Finale that night; at Sengoku Raiden Champions 13, Sandro took on the reigning champion Kanehara in a championship fight.  In arguably THE most brutal KO of 2010, Sandro caught Kanehara with a crushing right uppercut less than 30 seconds into the fight.  Kanehara was out cold before hitting the canvas, falling flat with a crash and a shattered jaw.

(GIF courtesy of BE's 2010 KO of the half-year awards thread)

Kanehara surrendered his belt to Sandro that night, paying a terrible price for the injustice doled out to Marlon Sandro at the hands of the judges in handing him a highly controversial first career loss - one year ago today, August 2nd 2009.