UFC Referee Yves Lavigne Acknoledges Mistakes and Apologizes

Some of the biggest talk after last Saturday night’s UFC 96 event revolved around the poor officiating in several fights.

The night got off to a bad start when the Shane Nelson vs. Aaron Riley bout was stopped extremely prematurely. Later in the evening, Yves Lavigne completely botched a matchup between Pete Sell and Matt Brown.

Yesterday, Lavigne was interviewed and owned up to his mistakes, offering an apology.

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“I screwed up. There’s not much to say. I screwed up the fight. I made a rookie mistake at the beginning and stopped it way too soon. I kind of restarted the fight.

It wasn’t over at that point and I made the decision to look like a fool and say ok, keep going. I may have deprived Mr. Brown of an early victory but we’ll never know because of me.”

“I feel really bad. Fighters deserve the best. Instead of talking about Mr. Brown's great win, people are talking about a ref.

Mr. Brown won with athleticism and tools he has and I’m taking the spotlight away because of my mistake. I feel really bad about it. He deserves better. He worked hard for that win.”

After the fight Lavigne went to the back and checked on Sell, “Mr. Sell was ok, according to him and said I should’ve let it go.” Lavigne says.

“I went to talk to him to see if he was ok. I do that on a regular basis after the fight. Sometimes with the adrenaline, they tell the doctor they are ok but sometime later they are not. He really was ok.”

[Source: AroundTheOctagon.com]

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I appreciate the fact that Lavigne is taking ownership of his mistakes, but I still feel that some kind of disciplinary action needs to be taken against both he and Rick Fike for their actions.