Over the last year, our FF-Files series has regaled with tales of pure imagination, wild but true stories chronicled (and not chronicled) in the Fight Finder databanks, and even a recent death threat we laughed off. A common thread to most of those articles is that either fighters or their representatives are involved, while promoters generally steer clear. In this delightful instance, which the top quote can serve as no better introduction, a promoter utterly and completely failed, and then attempted to go scorched earth when he did not get his way.
If you had never heard of WGO prior to this piece, do not be concerned about your MMA knowledge – this organization cobbled itself together in Iran a few years ago, and tried to start staging events any way it saw fit. The rules were all over the map – three rounds of three minutes each, and ground engagement was a huge question mark – and it came as no surprise that no recordkeeping body worth its salt paid any attention. This did not stop the president of the organization, the aforementioned Oodbashi, from harassing Sherdog staff constantly in order for his fights to be added to Fight Finder and therefore legitimized from an international perspective. His cries largely fell on deaf ears.
As time passed and the promotion learned that it needed to actually send proof of its fights so that we could review the footage and document the matches, what we received was difficult to process in many ways. “Professional” fights involved children, overpopulated cages allowed cameramen to walk around during the action, and results submitted often did not make sense; e.g. when one fighter simultaneously was declared the winner by knockout and referee decision. To process these bizarre entries, the results were all considered amateur, as amateur contests allow for greater leeway when adhering to the Unified Rules of MMA.
“There is a limit to my patience…You mean, like, saltines and their ilk, eh?”
Any MMA organization operating today should have a very clear, documented display of its official rules. It could be as simple as a sentence or two on the promotion’s webpage saying that it runs completely in accordance with the Unified Rules. If it doesn’t, it could say so, and explain the ways in which its ruleset diverges from the Unified Rules. A 17-page document listing its ruleset in its entirety is exceptional but well beyond the call of duty. If you don’t have anything on the books, but clearly don’t follow the international standard for staging MMA events, it’s in your best interest to say why. Instead of anything like this, the WGO sent a lengthy plea listing the president’s credentials – including “I am the founder of MMA in Iran and I am the first person to teach MMA to everyone in Iran” – and namedropping Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White for some reason. We didn’t need much, but we needed something, and we didn’t get it.
“God, I love Sherdog...”
As we continued to add WGO events on Fight Finder under the amateur distinction, the WGO started submitting little corrections to completed events, tweaking results or changing competitors from what they had previously submitted. That raises eyebrows, but flipping a loss from one 0-0 amateur to another 0-0 amateur is not as concerning as trying to strip a legitimate pro loss for Askar Mozharov to a professional jobber at The Legend King Championship in 2016. Things took a turn when we started digging deeper into WGO’s submissions and video documentation.
Your eyes do not deceive you in the above video, and there is no problem with your ears as WGO does not always include audio on its broadcasts. What you see is the fighter in the red gloves in his foe’s guard, while the blue-gloved fighter holds on to protect himself from ground-and-pound and force a referee standup. The referee did intervene, but not for the reason you would expect: he called the fight off. You can witness the man in the black polo shirt lifting his arm to signal a winner, while the one in the black suit – that would be Mr. Oodbashi himself – raising his hand to wave off the fight officially. What was the reason for this stoppage, and why on earth did someone stop it in this position? “Recognition of Technical Superiority by the Judging Committee” was the official result submitted directly from the promotion.
“I have worked hard for the reputation of Shrdog and I love it ((I showed my good intentions))”
The paltry explanation subsequently stated that the judges, and in this case, the actual head of the league, determined the fight was no longer competitive, thus awarding the win to this one fighter. Imagine if White had stopped Alexander Volkov vs. Derrick Lewis mid-fight and given Volkov a victory because Lewis was the “inferior fighter,” or if Bellator MMA chief Scott Coker had intervened partway through Sergio Pettis vs. Kyoji Horiguchi to rule that Horiguchi had done enough to win the match in the third round. This is an overt display of undue promoter influence that would make even One Championship cry foul of abuse of power.
“I do not know how to express my protest and disgust at how ugly and unpredictable your authoritarian act is.”
Pictured: no.
By this time, WGO had gone far beyond the “strike three” criteria that our staff loosely follows to determine if a submitter is operating in bad faith. The charges were numerous and exhaustive, including but not limited to: improperly staging fight cards that don’t rise to the level of pro MMA in the current era, adding Sherdog’s logo and identification to event advertisements to falsely imply that our company was involved with running its events, continually submitting incorrect information like finishes that occurred beyond the three-minute mark even though rounds clearly lasted three minutes, and even sending in fights that never actually happened, ruling that one fighter won by TKO when his foe did not make it to the cage. Adding to that, the previously discussed manipulation of fight stoppages, with issues ranging from judges saying the fight was over to calling fights off due to corner stoppage when no corner intervened. Enough finally had to be enough.
“I strongly and strongly object to your discriminatory actions…I officially announce my protest to you.”
We very clearly and directly explained to the league that its matches could not be considered MMA, at least not from a Sherdog Fight Finder perspective. There is no such thing as a TKO (Forfeit), and an organizer that decides to end fights when it wishes is not one that has the best interest of its fighters in mind. The protests came immediately, ranging from pointing fingers to other promotions’ past events, a declaration that these fights were all stopped for the sake of the “life and health of two fighters in a cage” and that Sherdog wanted nothing more than to cause harm to WGO. Multiple staff members’ names were also mentioned along the way, as if he had hoped that bringing up the “right” person would change anything.
“You were tied to the destruction of the WGO.”
Oodbashi himself claimed that since he has Iranian-American nationality, he will file a $200,000 lawsuit through the United States Federal Court against Sherdog. He also stated that he had already “testified of all the fighters” and sent whatever information this meant to the Court of Arbitration for Sport – an international court in Switzerland that only gets involved in Olympic sports or if there is a dispute in an arbitration agreement, neither of which are remotely close to the issue he is alleging. Despite that his email came nine hours after we dropped the hammer, he said he had filed his information to the U.S. Federal Court “with the testimony of the jury.”
Our response was simple: “We look forward to hearing from your attorney.” He replied, practically frothing at the mouth, writing:
“Remove the first round from the screen of your rabid and dirty dog.”
Good luck with that, Mehdi.
As long as you are not a representative of the properly-maligned WGO, we would be glad to hear your Fight Finder-related inquiries; please send them to fightfinder@sherdog.com.