Controversy reared it’s ugly head at UFC 234 when referee Marc Goddard apparently stopped a light heavyweight division contest between Jim Crute and Sam Alvey too soon.
Goddard admits that he may have made a mistake on that night, saying that he should’ve let Alvey eat a few more shots before stopping the fight.
“Yes, I know that Sam obviously jumped straight back up, obviously demonstrating to me and telling me he’s OK,” Goddard said to MMA Fighting. “But at that point the fight is called. And you know what? Going back and looking at it again, if I could run it back again, yeah I would have taken a half step back. I would have let another two shots or three shots play out. And I’m gonna put it down to a mistake. I’m big and ugly enough to do that.”
Alvey has lost two straight fights under the UFC banner and Goddard was the referee for both of them.
The referee said that Alvey ate at least sixteen strikes before he finally jumped in to end the encounter.
“It wasn’t one, two or three shots I’m jumping in and stopping,” Goddard said. “It was 16. Sixteen shots. And at that point, I’m taking into assessment, I think he’s hurt and not recovered from the original knockdown. I think he’s hurt, I see his head on the mat, I see the shots coming in and I make my call. At the same time, as I’m doing that, people are saying, ‘Didn’t you see Sam’s thumb up?’ No, I didn’t. Wholly and honestly, I didn’t see his thumb up, because his arm is outstretched and my focus, my vision is on where these shots are trying to land.”
UFC President Dana White was critical of Goddard for the supposed bad stoppage as well, while Alvey hasn’t publicly commented on it at this time.
