Ben Duffy/Sherdog.com illustration
In his fourth appearance under the Ultimate Fighting Championship flag, the Marathon MMA rep saw untold hours of work and one of the best performances of his career fly right out the window when a referee error turned a near-certain victory over Nikolas Motta on the UFC Fight Night 232 undercard into a no contest on Nov. 18 at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. At the center of Sherdog’s “Robbery of the Year” was the experienced and typically reliable Mike Beltran.
“I’m just trying to be a professional and keep my composure,” Ogden said at the post-fight press conference. “Life happens. I’m no stranger to adversity, but this one hurts.”
The 34-year-old Ogden spent much of the first round establishing his jab and turning his counterpart’s nose a deep shade of red. Motta responded by swinging for the fences with power punches, often missing his intended target by wide margins. Ogden completed the first of his three takedowns near the end of the period, giving the Nova Uniao product one more threat with which to concern himself. The encounter traveled down much the same path in the second round and into the third. There, Ogden secured another takedown, cut loose with palm strikes and framed an arm-triangle choke. He cleared Motta’s legs, tightened his squeeze and waited for what felt like an inevitable tapout. Beltran asked the Brazilian to confirm he was still lucid, checked his arm for signs of consciousness and made the decision to call for the stoppage 3:11 into Round 3. Motta immediately sprang to his feet in protest, and it became clear a mistake in officiating had been made. There was no going back.
“You can’t restart the fight,” Ogden said. “That’s not fair unless you start me back in the exact same position, but it’s still not the same because now he’s had rest; and he was drowning. All respect to Nik, but he was slowing down. It sounded like he was snoring to me, and it sounded like he was snoring to the ref.”
After video review, officials settled on a no contest. Ogden and his team were incensed.
“They should go to the scorecards,” he said.
It would be difficult for any sensible observer to argue against the logic. Ogden was ahead two rounds to none on the scorecards and in possession of a potential submission when Beltran intervened. The decision cost him not only a victory but thousands of dollars in earnings—a financial hit no mid-level UFC fighter can afford.
“Even if the arm-triangle didn’t submit him, I was in the mount,” Ogden said. “I would have stayed in mount till the end of the fight, and I would have won the fight and got paid. There is a tremendous amount of sacrifice that goes into this game and in this sport for me and my family—and financial sacrifice. I did nothing wrong. I did my job. I fought as hard as I could. It was an exciting fight. It was a tough fight, and I won.”
Unfortunately for Ogden, the historical record shows otherwise.