2. Not Dan Miragliotta’s finest hour
Veteran Dan Miragliotta is seemingly finding himself in the midst of more and more controversies of late, and that’s not the reputation anyone in his position should want to have.
After getting in hot water with the public for displaying personal bias against Bellator fighter Michael Page not long ago, Miragliotta found himself as part of the narrative for not one, but two bouts in Washington.
The conversation he had with [autotag]Stefan Struve[/autotag] after the heavyweight absorbed his second low blow from Ben Rothwell was absolutely inappropriate. There’s no situation where it’s OK for a referee to tell a fighter his opinion on where things stand on the scorecards in the middle of a bout, but that’s what he did during his speech to Struve. It’s really not a great look.
Then there was the main event. Given how badly Rozenstruik’s punch ripped Overeem’s lip open, I’m glad “The Reem” didn’t take another shot to the face after getting dropped. On the merits of the actual fight-ending sequence, though, there’s some debate to be had. It was not even close to the worst stoppage we’ve seen, but Overeem did pop back up quite fast after the knockdown and, for all we know, could’ve evaded Rozenstruik for those final four ticks on the clock.
Miragliotta shouldn’t receive major heat for making a split-second judgement call in the headliner. That’s the job, and it’s not an easy one. His decision-making coming into question is not rare, though, and that’s obviously not ideal.