Penick's Take
PENICK: Bad officiating and no drug testing at "Strikeforce: Houston" showcase issues with the Texas Athletic Commission
Aug 22, 2010 - 4:50:36 PM PENICK: Bad officiating and no drug testing at "Strikeforce: Houston" showcase issues with the Texas Athletic Commission

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

Saturday's Strikeforce: Houston event on Showtime brought to the forefront some major issues with the Texas State Athletic Commission. The most egregious issues were with the referees and the fact that no drug testing was done on the event.

I've already highlighted my feelings about referee Jon Schorle in the Bobby Lashley vs. Chad Griggs fight, but there were also major, major issues in the K.J. Noons vs. Jorge Gurgel fight as well.

Noons stopped Gurgel 19 seconds into the second round of their bout after knocking him down with a two punch combo. The indecisiveness of the referee to stop the fight immediately, which should have been done, caused an extra flurry ending in a frustrated Noons throwing a kick/knee that appeared to be illegal as the ref finally came in to stop the fight.

But it shouldn't have event gotten there.

At the end of the first round, Gurgel was throwing a flurry of punches at Noons as the bell sounded. Hearing the "ding, ding, ding" of the bell, Gurgel stopped his hands. In that split second as the bell rang, Noons wound up and unleashed a vicious left hook that knocked Gurgel silly. Regardless of Noons' intent, and whether he heard the bell or not, the punch came after the bell sounded.

The fight should have been stopped then and there. The referee subjected Gurgel to more punishment and a second possible knockout by allowing him to come out for that second round. The hook knocked him down in vicious fashion, and he was scrambled from there on out. There was no reason he should have been allowed to come out to take the punishment in the second round.

The result likely would have meant a no contest because again, regardless of whether Noons heard the bell or not, it sounded right before he threw the punch. And I don't place any blame on Noons for throwing the punch because that whole sequence happened really fast. But intent doesn't matter. It happened, it should have caused the stoppage, and it should have been a no contest because of it. And the poor job done by the referee brought the end result.

Then there's the issue of drug testing in the state of Texas. Their commission does not require testing, so it's on the organization running an event to drug test their fighters. For last night's event, none of the participants were tested.

When the UFC went to Dallas for UFC 103 last year they had to do the testing independently, as they learned the hard way as well with UFC 69 that the commission doesn't test the fighters.

But the issue is the fact that the state doesn't do it, not that Strikeforce should have done it on their own. For the number of events they run in the state, it's ridiculous that no form of testing is required. It's bad enough with commissions that do a poor job of testing, but if fighters know they're fighting in Texas and they're not going to be tested there's no barriers to them doing whatever they feel like to take a fight there.

It was simply a bad showing by the commission appointed officials last night, and with how everything was handled there it's not going to get better anytime soon.