MMA referee Leon Roberts is under fire for allowing the first of the UFC 251’s three title fights Saturday night between Petr Yan and Jose Aldo go on for as long as it did.
By the final round, Yan had rained blow after blow on Jose Aldo to the point where he was down on his knees and guarding his head, clearly unable to fight back. Roberts had plenty of opportunities to stop the fight when Yan was the obvious winner. When the fight was finally stopped at 3:24 of the last round, Yan won the vacant UFC bantamweight championship.
According to ESPN Stats and Information, Yan held a 62-1 significant strikes advantage in the final round.
“Horrible, horrible stoppage by the referee. Should’ve been stopped way sooner,” UFC president Dana White said. “Looks like we’ve gotta tighten up our refs and judges here on Fight Island.”
Roberts took some significant heat on social media, with fighters, media and fans expressing their disbelief with how long the fight went on.
ESPN MMA reporter Ariel Helwani tweeted, “This is senseless. Aldo is done. Stop the fight.”
Former UFC fighter Ben Askren wrote, “Wow what did Aldo do to this refereee???? STOP THE DAMN FIGHT,” followed by, “Wow that ref should not ref fights!!”
Gilbert Burns, who after testing positive for coronavirus was replaced by Jorge Masvidal in the UFC 251 main event against Kamaru Usman, called Roberts a “f–king bad referee.”
Aldo, 33, is a former UFC featherweight champion.