Saturday night was a great night of fights marred by Kim Winslow’s no-calls on Maximo Blanco’s cage grabbing, her early stoppage of Tate/Zingano, and this controversial fight between Gabriel Gonzaga and Travis Browne. It may be Monday, but I’ve had enough fight-drama for the next few weeks, that’s for sure. If you missed it at the TUF 17 finale, Gonzaga was shooting in on Travis Browne and put him against the cage, then the Hawaiian reigned elbows down into the side and back of Gonzaga’s skull until he was unconscious.
The side and back of the head.
Some said the hits were fair, some say the fight should be changed to a No Contest, Dana White thinks the hits were fine:
“Me and Joe Silva looked at a replay of it on the Internet,” said White. “he was out with the ones to the side (of the head), and then he hit him with a couple more to the back of the head after he was already out. That’s the way that I saw it.”
“You know me, if I didn’t think the referees did a good job I would tell you. They did a good job tonight, considering the bad situations tonight when people were in bad situations, they did a good job tonight of stopping the fights.”
Gabriel Gonzaga’s manager, Marco Alvan, says they will appeal to the Nevada Athletic Commission. This is what he said to the fans via Facebook.
“Guys Gabriel Gonzaga is ok, thanks for the messages,” wrote Alvan.
“I need to review it to count how many illegal elbows but Its a fact that it was illegal. I contacted Keith Kizer head of Nevada Athletic Comission and he told me to file a complaint and he would review it.
I true believe it was illegal. I never complaint about a losses who knows me know that I handle it good but illegal we can not accept.”“We appeal to the Nevada State Athletic Commission because we think were the illegal elbows neck. Whenever we had accepted any defeat, but this was illegal.”
“This video is clear about the elbow.
Well, here is that video:
It looks like one, maybe two are legal, and it’s hard to see if Gonzaga is out by the time the brutal, back of the head elbows hit him. This is one of those instances wehre instant replay should be reviewed in the sport.
