Dean Amasinger Suspicious Of Fight Night 42 Drug Tests And Scorecards
The controversial decision rendered by the judges for the co-main event at Fight Night 42 has dominated the headlines since occurring this past Saturday. Diego Sanchez was seemingly gifted a decision by officials in Albuquerque, New Mexico, after being outclassed against Ross Pearson over three rounds.
News then emerged today that ‘The Real Deal’ had lodged not only a complaint, but an appeal in regards to the officiating against ‘The Nightmare’. As if it wasn’t shady enough already, Pearson’s teammate Dean Amasinger claims that there is more at play than bad judging. Check out what he said to MMAJunkie.com:
“Ross was drug tested before the fight, which is perfectly normal. That’s absolutely fine, and all this stuff is supposed to be random. But when Ross came back from the drug test, he said to me, ‘I’ve seen the list; none of the Jackson guys are on the drug test list, or the New Mexican guys who are fighting on the card.’ And so I went and checked and that was the case. I made a note to (UFC site coordinator) Burt Watson and I said, ‘I want to let you know that I’m feeling uncomfortable about that.’”
This may be becoming more of a deep subject than we had first thought, and for all the wrong reasons. If the accusations made by Amasinger and Pearson are true, there could well be foul play afoot. I wouldn’t like to point fingers, but luckily Amasinger is on hand to make some more assumptions:
“With [Sanchez] being from New Mexico and specifically Albuquerque, there’s obvious connections there and obvious potential conflicts of interest,” Amasinger said. “They don’t have a lot of experience with bigger shows, and I think that’s another factor that’s played into this happening.”
All I can say here is that I hope this isn’t what it sounds like. Pearson’s team mate then moved on to the subject of the appeal made to overturn the result at Fight Night 42:
“The ideal scenario would be the decision overturned, and I still have my fingers crossed that it was potentially a mistake, particularly the 30-27 [score],” Amasinger said. “I just can’t see how that was scored. The ideal situation is an overturned decision. The next down from that is a no-contest, I suppose, and we get a rematch. We hope that’s going to be the case, because half of your wage is a pretty serious difference when there’s a mistake involved,” he said. “With the reaction everyone’s had, I think it’s possibly one of the worst decisions in UFC history.”
In one of the most controversial cases I’ve ever seen in regards to judging, could this be a simple case of bungled score cards? If not, this rabbit hole could go further, and to much darker places than I care to think about. The official scorecards for the bout, and the list of fighters set to be drug tested before the event are yet to be released, but I’ll keep you updated as any news emerges.
