Kai Kara-France (right) lost to Amir Albazi via a controversial split decision. Photo / Getty Images
Kai Kara-France (right) lost to Amir Albazi via a controversial split decision. Photo / Getty Images
City Kickboxing coach Eugene Bareman is calling for UFC judges to be held accountable for their actions following a controversial loss for Kiwi flyweight Kai Kara-France at the weekend.
Kara-France dropped from third to fifth in the division rankings after the split decision defeat to Iraq’s Amir Albazion Sunday — a contest that saw two of the three judges award Albazi the fight 48-47, although most pundits felt Kara-France deserved the win.
The judges for the fight - Chris Lee, Sal D’Amato and Mike Bell – are licenced officials under the State of Nevada Athletic Commission, with the flyweight’s fight taking place in at The UFC Apex in Las Vegas.
Bareman wants to see UFC judges be given a platform to talk about their thought process — similar to the way players and coaches front the media after a game.
“Whether it’s rugby, NFL or NBA, you always have them having to explain themselves, the reason why things went wrong, the reasons they didn’t do such a good job, they have to explain that to people.
“Judges don’t have to do that. They simply get to make a judgement and then go home and carry on with their life. With such an important job and responsibility, there should be more accountability.
“At the moment, there’s no avenue for that but that would be an awesome thing in the sport if there was a controversial decision, you had to explain the reasons why it went that way.”
The key decision was judge Chris Lee’s call to give Albazi the fourth round — a decision the head coach at City Kickboxing emphatically disagrees with.
“According to the marking schedule, Kai clearly met all those criteria in rounds four and five quite comfortably and unfortunately, the guy gave it to the other person, effectively losing us the fight.
“The other rounds I don’t have a problem with — round three I felt should’ve gone to him [Albazi], round two can go to him, round one can go to either or, it just so happened that it went to Kai.
“The problem is round four and five — to judge those for the other guy shows some very clear incompetence and at that level you just can’t have incompetence.”
But Bareman isn’t taking anything away from Albazi.
“I thought Albazi fought a great fight. He did his job; he has no control over the judges’ decision.”
Eugene Bareman and Kai Kara-France prepare for a bout. Photo / Getty Images
Fighters and coaches are unable to interact with the judges after a fight, giving them no indication of how a decision came to be.
“There is an official avenue you can take where you can lodge a protest but it’s a fruitless path. It never leads anywhere, it’s more effort for nothing that it’s just not worth even attending to,” Bareman said.
The only power fighters have is to voice their opinions on different online and media outlets.
It’s the route UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya went down, taking to Twitter immediately following Kara-France’s defeat.
Kara-France also chipped in on his controversial loss.
“I don’t have the power to do anything about it or the resources, but hopefully someone who does in the industry sees this,” Bareman says.
“A lot of teams have gone on and let their displeasure known to the world, so that’s all we can really do unfortunately.”
For Kara-France, the only thing he can do is move forward.
A win would’ve put him in prime position for a number one contender’s fight, likely to be a rematch with Brandon Royval.
Bareman says Kara-France will need to find the mental fortitude to bounce back from the defeat.
“He loses his ranking, he takes himself potentially another year away from a title shot, so it would’ve taken him a year to get to the title shot — now he’s two years away.
“He now has to fight some even more dangerous opponents because he’s moved lower down the rankings.”
Kara-France also missed out on a $100,000 win bonus.
“The big thing is, you get half of your money to show, and half of your money to win and if you don’t win, you lose half of your money. That affects his life and his family,” Bareman said.
“People can understand why the sport is structured like that, but when you have it ripped away from you because of judges’ incompetency, it’s a tough thing to come back from.”
With the UFC set to return to Sydney in September, it’s a date Kara-France could target for his next bout.
“It gives Kai enough time to rest and build himself up mentally again,” Bareman said.
“In terms of the opponent, I’m not sure. The rankings have changed so much. In my mind, the same opponent [Albazi] would be great but that’s not a thing that happens, they don’t often do rematches.
“If Kai can get back in front of effectively what is his home crowd in Sydney, I think that’ll be an awesome way to come back from this devastating loss.”
