Ref ‘Didn’t Have The Balls’ To Call Walker-Ankalaev A DQ

Sonnen wants you to forget about the Johnny Walker ‘desert’ talk and focus on how the referee ignored a blatant intentional foul.

The Johnny Walker vs. Magomed Ankalaev fight at UFC 294 barely got started before it was over, the victim of an illegal knee and an ‘inexperienced’ cageside physician. The way the fight got waved off was so ridiculous that it’s stolen a lot of the outrage away from another issue: the bout being declared a No Contest due to accidental foul.

In a new video uploaded to his YouTube channel, Chael Sonnen called out the referee at UFC 294 for dereliction of duty.

“If the referee had the cojones to make the call that he should of — that this is illegal — we wouldn’t have brought the doctor in,” Sonnen declared. “To act as though this is the doctor’s fault and to take all the onus off the referee? No, it’s not!”

“Now the rules were followed. The rules very clearly state under the Unified Rules, and even if it’s self-regulated they follow the Unified Rules of the ABC. And it very clearly states that it’s the referee’s discretion: is the foul intentional or unintentional? That decision is solely left up to the referee. But that decision still comes with a definition.”

“‘Unintentional’ would be I go to push, I got my hands open, you happen to change elevation and I poke you in the eye instead of your chest. Now I poked you in the eye, which is against the rules, but it was clearly unintentional. I was trying to push you in the chest.”

“Ankalaev tried to knee Walker … in the face,” Chael said. “He then threw a knee … in Walker’s face. Of which the knee landed … on the face. That’s intentional. Period. That’s a disqualification. That was the third time tonight that happened, it happened twice in an earlier contest at 125 pounds with Tim Elliott.”

“We only have a couple of rules in this sport: don’t bite the guy and don’t kick the son of a b—h when he’s down! To see one of the extremely few rules that we have be caught — it wasn’t missed, totally different if you miss it — to have it caught, to have it witnessed, to have it observed, and then to have the rule not be followed? I will just tell you, it’s frustrating. But it’s also systemic.”

“Two different fights, same card, two different referees, same decision to not take a point away.”

“You got to call it,” he concluded. “That was a disqualification. That was a victory for Walker. That is 100% what it should have been. Never should have gone to the doctor. And the only reason the doc got brought in is because the referee didn’t have the balls to make the decision, so he pushed the onus onto somebody else. And it worked! The whole narrative is now on the doctor and his lack of experience and him asking Johnny ‘What country are you in?’”

“It lacked courage. It was easy to do. A referee pushed it on a doctor, it worked. The little scam worked. The referee got out of it, the doctor’s to blame. Come on, get real.”

While Chael raises a valid point, there’s more than enough blame to go around to both officials for their handling of that fiasco.

---

For complete UFC 294 results, coverage and highlights click HERE.