hey everyone I'm Mark Godard MMA referee and I'm here to answer some questions your questions with Laura Sano and when the ACT begins a referee in charge of the Octagon Mark Gard why do MMA referees wear gloves um it's really a hygiene thing to be honest you know Fighters bodily fluids mainly blood Etc you know when you go to a dentist or doctors things like that people that are touching buddies it's it's generally you know it it's cleanliness hygiene and courteous just to wear the gloves and then you know it looks pretty cool too don't
do that don't do that please who pays UFC referees permissions uh depending on where we are in the world um you know because not every country you go to uh is there a commission and in general the same as boxing you know even though there is a commission the people are the intermediaries that's what they so the promotion whether it be boxing MMA whoever they will pay a set fee towards the commission which in turn pays for all the services from the commission including officials ladies and gentlemen referee Mark Gard has called us St to
this contest how are UFC referees chosen again it's a mixture of where the fights take place in the world uh when I talk about commissions that's pretty much by large the the United States you know that's that's how it operates over there so if the UFC reserve a date in New York or Las Vegas or whichever Florida whichever state it may be and then the commission will be the intermediaries who can go out and contact the uh officials directly uh a lot of the times and for other promotions you'll see me work all over the
world in other countries you know north south east and west there is no commission here you're directly dealing on a oneto one with uh an advisor or somebody who works with booking people within the promotions but again the confidence comes from the hard work from the ability why do MMA referees pat down Fighters at the checkpoint it's just uh you're basically well number one you you're checking that they're free of any foreign substance you know there's no linament oils or grease on them you know you'll see us uh perform a rub down of the chest
the shoulders the arms the legs um and then it's a final check for their safety equipment just to make sure obviously make sure there's nothing wrong with the gloves that haven't been tampered with the boxes on you know the gr guard mouthpiece Etc it's just a once overall check number one to make sure they're free of foreign substance and number two that they're wearing everything that they should be and not wearing things they shouldn't be how does one become an MMA referee um well I mean like like any like any industry or job or vacation
you know I say to people probably the most common question I get or one of them for sure and they say how do how do I become an MMA referee and number one is to start at the bottom you know look for if you're involved in the sport um and by that I mean a practitioner not necessarily MMA because a lot of people say that they go oh do you have to have been a fighter to have foot no absolutely categorically not put that to bed no if you're involved with a sport whether you're trying
wrestling Jiu-Jitsu Muay Thai boxing whatever it give you a better understanding you know of the Practical applications and then if there is uh like I said if you live in an area or a country that has an athletic commission contact them look for some recognized training that the likes of myself herb or other referees will give out and then you know get your like like anything I say people go to I explain this on the seminars with and judges people go to a university for what three four maybe five years when they come out of
that University hopefully with their qualification or degree they don't jump straight in at the top it's exactly the same when it comes to MMA officiating you can't there's two things you can't bypass and it's time and experience and they're both directly inherent of each other so I say to people get out amongst it contact your local shows ask to be a volunteer get behind the scenes learn the sport learn as much as you can and then slowly but surely that you know the more you apply the self the more you go out there people think
that we just sat down and that what one day the phone rang wasn't like that 20 years ago when I began reing I was doing all those things and working shows for free and stuff like that you've just got to have a realistic view on it and and take your time for sure look at that and there's nothing else to be said well it's hard to watch vul here digest this defeat shortly thereafter nice job by Mark Godard on the stoppage but Islam makev reign supreme do MMA referees know how to fight I don't know
about all of them but some but most of the guys you know like I said I had a background in MMA and obviously I'm still a martial artist you know more than half my life and it's always stood me in good stead pretty much all the the referees that I know at the top at least still train in one or more facet whether it be JJ mostly Jiu-Jitsu but I'll still train I'll still spy very occasionally I'm still training uh uh Jiu-Jitsu every week I still teach Jiu-Jitsu every week obviously wrestling for MMA Etc so
most of like it goes back to what I was saying before if you are involved in same as a judge you know if you're involved in one or more of the facets of MMA even as a recreational practitioner you're going to have a far better understanding when it comes down to fighting that's a different story Al together I can attest the fact that Mark is quite the ball in the training room we had one training day together never again I tapped out I tapped out no I want I want no no more of lightweight Advantage
slight against the champion Alexander banovski are UFC referees doctors no I don't know any referee that's uh I don't know any referee that's actually a certified or qualified doctor um that's what you'll have Specialists for that you know referees are referees judges are Judges doctors are doctors I have undergone basic first aid training in various even in my previous role and and and working commercially but uh by and large the medical practitioners and specialists you will see at an event are just that and they're there for that specific reason they're the experts in that [Applause]
[Music] field how do MMA referees know when to stop a fight famous question you know how long is the piece of string look obviously there's there's levels to this you know um kind of you know am I going to treat a firsttime amateur the same as a professional fighter no am I going to teach am I going to um I'll approach it the same but obviously Common Sense tells you I'm not going to let the a first time Pro or a firsttime amateur get into as deep of water as as I would a season professional
fighting for potentially a world championship fight despite what people may say despite what the internet thinks and it's like this look I kind of use the analogy I'll give you two analogies that hopefully will make sense when when a fight begins you know like you imagine that they're in the water okay and I'm a lifeguard alongside them and you know they're going to go out into various depths of water you know it's going to get deep it's going to they may go under the water they may come back up I'm there right alongside them you
know you know how deep that water is going to get at points and again it comes back to the fight the level it may be Etc and sometimes you'll see a fighter go underwater the head will go under maybe several times and there's a belief in there that you think that they've gone under the water for the last time and it's your job to get them out and it's as simple as that there's also another methodology that I might I may employ it's the traffic light system you know I've explained this before in previous in
fact what I was very humbled because when I explained this there's a very famous boxing ref from California called Jack Reese amazing guy world class boxing referee an amazing guy and he grabbed me at last year's ABC and he said hey Mark he I listened to this analogy you said about the traffic lights and he said I think is amazing I've never heard anything like it and he uses it but anyway so the analogy is this look a fight begins it's a green light you know it could be competitive it's going back and forth and
things happen one fighter May then get uh an advantage over another maybe hurt him stumble him knock him down the light turns Amber so I'm standing there watching these lights the light may turn to Red then you you know if I think that the fight has gone to a certain point where the fighter can't Avail himself or can't get himself out I'm going to have to take them out of that fight and do my job and listen it's it's probably it's the you know it's one of the biggest unforgiving parts of the sport you know
because it's if a fighter gets submitted it's over it's clear if a fighter gets clean knocked out it's over it's clear it's on that middle ground of the of the TKO the technical knockout where you as the referee are making the decision based on the level the safety and the awareness of that fighter it's not an exact science it can't be an exact science but please trust in the in the person who's making that call with nothing other than the best of intentions and experience at heart I hope that makes sense our referee in charge
of the Octagon Mark Gard the internet would like to know what is Mark goddard's salary I can answer that very clearly not what Google says believe me it's not what Google says if only it was what Google says oh man I thought the referee was going to stop it oh he is get him a second belt talk to me about the secondary ref what his or her role is um you're talking about the review official right yes um yeah that's somebody that's you know your see on the broadcast the the referee in the cave Remains
the sole Arbiter he is the one with the final decision our job obviously look it's 2024 technolog is a good thing you look at other Topline Sports they've got officials and Camas everywhere it's only quite recently that we've started to employ it within MMA and rightly so because we are human beings we can only be on one side at one time we can't see through objects we can't see through people and things happen you know in MMA at a rapid pace something could happen that we that we miss could be an I perk could be
a Gro shot could be anything so in essence the the job of the review official is just that you'll see that we're sat there in front of the screen we got a little box of tricks that can pause the live camera it can go back 10 seconds go forward 10 frame by frame It's a Wonderful bit of Kit they've got cage side uh and really yes if the if the review official sees something egregious you may have saw it last year at one point it's only one time it's happened you saw an amber light come
on um I think during the fight with it could have been um Alexa Grasso and chevchenko if I'm not mistaken I wasn't the ref I wasn't there I don't think but the the signification of the amberite tells you that Something's Happened and the referee may not have seen it so we have the ability to call an anytime um replay just to make sure that was something that we hadn't missed and that's the job of the the review official sometimes you'll see on the on the broadcast or the pay-per-views in between rounds will walk over to
the commission table and on that commission table myself herb Herzog whoever it may be we're sat there looking at the review as the referees in the cage they can come to us at the end of each round like I said it's quite an extreme set of circumstances to pull on an amber light but if it happens that ability is there for us generally the you know something was called if the referee saw something he has the ability like I said to all time utilize the anytime Replay have a brief conversation with a review official as
well anything that makes him or makes that referee in a better place to make their final decision like I said it's a fast-paced sport it's 2024 we have all this technology of cameras everywhere so we want to use it especially in a combat sport where making sure the right person walks away with that win is of Paramount importance is that specific to the UFC and to Nevada or sorry yeah not specific to Nevada some jurisdictions some um Commissions in the US still do not employ the anytime replay what they do is go by the old
rule which meant it had to be a fight ending foul um there is more and more commissions now working with the any time replay because the technology is there you know and mostly when the UFC go to other countries foreign territories they will just default to what Nevada are doing um and Nevada as you know have any time we have the ability for Anytime replay and like I said look it's about making sure we get the fairest safest possible um ending to a fight should we need it we've got all that technology there you know
we've got the the the the review official sorry the main Arbiter the official inside and you've got a review official outside why not utilize them to the fullest extent Alex away no coaching no coaching do you study the the fighters not really Laura because look like you said I've been in the sport now 25 years yeah I've seen a lot and obviously from from an official's point of view um when when it comes to who I'm refereeing it's not necessarily important to me because yeah of course I'm immersed in the sport I'm watching the sport
we can't turn off me and all my friends and the officials if we're not working fights we're talking about them we're watching them so and then and those times if I'm not there I'm training so there you go tells you how busy we are with fights we don't I don't really look at a fight card to me it doesn't make any odds who I'm turning up to referee you may see is in certain commissions like uh uh Vegas namely where they'll have a commission meeting so maybe one week 10 days before there's a world championship
fight the officials are assigned that's not really the norm most places you go there and it's better like that because we just walk in get our assignments three or four hours before the fight job done we got a nice you know blank canvas in our minds I always sat to would be officials and and and officials when we're working one of the most dangerous things an official can do is be preoccupied with what they think is going to happen we don't take that we take it on face value it's a blank canvas every round is
a blank canvas we don't know what the fighters are going to do and we just run with it as it as it you know as it plays so that's what my advice is to you know would be fight would be officials and and some experienced officials as well I saw so many people get a bit preoccupied with like I said I'm dealing with this fight and he's got a tendency to do this and I'm like well if he does that then MMA is a fact-based sport right we deal with what's happened not what we think
is going to happen or happening it's in the moment the same as judges you watch a round of fighting every single thing that happens in that round you report on it it's past or present tense not the future does that make sense yeah no absolutely and as as it should be shows up the champ bracket would you ever take a point for shoving after a round it would be context driven you know like you know a like a little you know handbags at dawn kind of thing or but you know somebody coming in after the
somebody coming in after that's a very British saying this incredibly Bri yeah um handbags at door go where was I now what were we talking about we talking about shoving after shoving so look it's context driven the referee comes in there's a little bit of Argy but you know emotions run high in a fight that's different if you break them up and then somebody's CH charging across the cage and send you flying into the canvas or flying onto the matap that's a different thing altogether you know not all fouls are equal yeah and uh and
and and by that definition all consequencies shouldn't be equal either we take it on face value how did it play out how forceful was it was it damaging etc etc was it repetitive and then we'll deal with it big spots against the sports best oh another oh was a poke in the eye there's always a lot of discussion around DQ versus no contest and a lot of that comes down to intentional versus unintentional fouls I mean look disqualifications are there it's in the rules it's necessary unfortunately I have dced people before in the past very
few and far between because what most people don't realize is that they will see an illegal action during a fight a foul and yes it was a foul a kick to the granded fighter a need to a granded fighter Etc they will see that action oh I going to it was an illegal strike to there but that's not our job the referee the so a very clear instance you can see I'm okay it's without deliberation it's without question they got kneed or kicked in the head what the referee's job is to do is to see
if the referee sorry to see if the fighter acted intentionally was sometimes you can be Reckless but not malicious yes okay like a classic case in point I drop you with a left hand you go stumbling backwards I have to run five meters across the cage to get to you and then I'll suck a kick you in the face no argument there if we're against the fence and we're rattling each other up and down up and down you go down I go down up and then I throw an inherent knee To The Head and the
knee connects flush there's no question about me meaning to KN you in the head but wasn't it reasonable was it reasonable for me to assume I knew you were down so it's actually the intent on the action not the weapon of choice if that makes sense it's a it's a rare I have DQ people in the past obviously it's a rare occurrence thankfully but you've got to take into consideration as a referee that sometimes I could be entirely Reckless or careless but I'm not necessarily being malicious mark thank you so much for the information today
we always appreciate your time and uh yeah hopefully we'll have you on again I'm going to I'm going to keep taking notes keep uh adding up my my questions we'll have to have you on again maybe we'll have some new rules anytime Laura anytime reach out thank you Mark Take Care thank you
