I wasn't there. I paid no attention to the event. I asked no one to email me anything. I asked for no one to evaluate the performance of any athletic commission official. Yet, this morning, my inbox was flooded with a story from Harrisonburg, Virginia where the notorious state commission may have once again proved themselves incapable of performing the responsibilities of their positions.
Rather than recounting something I didn't see, here's what Tim Chapman (Editor-in-Chief of James Madison University's "Daily Breeze") had to say about a Respect Is Earned (RIE) event in Harrisonburg, VA:
Jessie Riggleman of Harrisonburg easily bested Bryan Goldsby of Macon, Ga., through the first two rounds. Goldsby might have won the third round with a flurry of strikes. When Dave Holland and his crew handed in the scorecard it was announced that Goldsby won a split-decision. Everyone was pretty confused and all I could think of was the Beebe fight and how these judges are clearly incompetent.
Upon further review, one of the judges realized that he or she had written the wrong numbers for the fighters, meaning Jesse won the split decision. As the main event was about to start they asked Jesse to come back in the cage after the next two fighters had already entered. Then the ring announcers decided to hold off the announcement as fans chided the promoter for prolonging the main event.
After the main event, they brought Jesse and Bryan back into the cage and said that the state of Virginia had ruled the fight a draw. At this point, it was really hard not to laugh. Then Jonathan Price, the RIE promoter, told everyone that there was another change and Jesse had been awarded the win.
In the end they got it right, but it was quite unfair to both fighters to go through that circus.
This writer tries to unpack how this could've happened:
It is almost impossible to confuse these two fighters. First, I know that the judge had a bout sheet, the fighters’ gloves were taped with color appropriate tape for the corner they were fighting out of. But beyond that, the fighters were introduced prior to the fight, and to go from surreal to sublime, Riggleman is white and Goldsby is black.
I have not seen a Virginia judge’s card. But it should be safe to assume that the card would be laid out fairly simply. if I remember the Jersey cards I’ve seen, there is are basically two columns: Red Corner & Blue Corner. There are areas to fill in with the fighter name & a short description (trunk colors for example), round score and a reason for the score. If Virginia’s cards are set up similarly, the fighters’ names shouldn’t even be an issue. Just pay attention to the color taped around their gloves, and you don’t need to know who’s who. The scary thought behind this problem is, the judge had to own up to his mistake. He had to go to the commissioner and say “I screwed the pooch on that last fight.” Now that the lid is off the box, your left wondering, how often does this happen without being reported by the judge?
It gets better. A RIE rep weighs-in:
"After the Beau Baker fight, which was also the next and final fight of the night, we called Jessie Riggleman back into the cage to interview him. Than we get word from the commission that the official decision has been changed and it turns out the fight was a draw. So, we announce to the crowd that the fight is a draw and there a little more happy about because there hometown boy doesn't get a loss."
"So we start the interview in the cage about how the fight turned into a draw and within those five minutes we actually get another word from the athletic commission," Adams said. "that it turns out that Jessie Riggleman has won the fight. So, we make that announcement and the crowd goes crazy, they didn't know what quite is going on but their excited."
Adams summed up the chaotic end to his MMA event "They literally within a half hour time period; gave Bryan Goldsby the split decision, 20 minutes later they changed it to a draw, and then 5-10 minutes after that they turned around and gave the win to Jessie. I've never seen anything like that before."
"Let me be very clear that neither corner is upset with the other fighter and corner." Adams said. "It's just they are both extremely upset with the athletic commission and judges because once you give the official decision and they sign the cards its suppose to be official."
I'll keep up with the story as details pour in, but I want to make something clear: I never made any of this up. I hope it's finally obvious I wasn't trying to manufacture a storyline about Virginia's commission that never existed. The innocent were never tarred and feathered unfairly. The reality is when you're incompetent at your job and you perform it regularly, errors are going to appear (and these reports appear to be a testament to this). As they happen under the light of scrutiny, there's going to be blow black, particularly when the stakes are high.
We'll update this story as information is produced, but I hope efforts to document athletic commission wrongdoing - be it in Virginia or elsewhere - produces a culture within MMA to pushback against government incompetence. We need and rely upon members of state regulatory bodies to ensure fighter safety and administer the sport correctly. When they fail, innocents are hurt. So is the sport itself.
More to come.