FNG Issues Statement On Referee Controversy

Fightful recently reported about the horrifying job that referee Denis Sivoplyas did during the fight between UFC veteran Maiquel Falcao and Vladimir Mineev at Fight Nights Global 63.

Sivoplyas allows the UFC veteran to take a lot of unnecessary strikes before stopping the fight late in the opening round. The stoppage was so terrible that even long time referee’s “Big” John McCarthy and Marc Goddard spoke out against it on Twitter.

FNG officials recently issued a statement to MMA Junkie in response to the outrage:

“We are very disappointed at the referee’s performance during the Mineev vs. Falcao fight,” the statement read. “It was obvious the fight should have been stopped long before it actually was stopped. FNG has no control over the referees and judges, as they report to the commission. Fight Nights Global holds the safety of its fighters as top priority and will address the issue directly to the commission and continue to invest in efforts to work with the commission on raising the safety and referee standard in Russia’s MMA sports.”

FNG returns to action this weekend with Fight Nights Global 64 on Friday, April 28 with UFC veteran Ali Bagautinov in the main event.