UFC Vegas 82 results: Trey Ogden vs. Nikolas Motta ends in bizarre no-contest after bad referee stoppage

18/11/2023 21:15

Trey Ogden will go home with half his paycheck and a no-contest on his record after referee Mike Beltran made an egregious mistake in his fight with Nikolas Motta at UFC Vegas 82.

The controversy arose when Beltran stopped the fight after Ogden mounted Motta and then transitioned into an arm-triangle choke late in the third round. While Ogden had the choke locked in, Motta was clearly still contesting the submission as the referee shouted at him to react.

Despite Motta still resisting the choke, Beltran jumped in and stopped the fight. Ogden began celebrating while the Brazilian jumped up in protest. It was obviously a bad stoppage but it appeared Ogden would get the nod.

Then the announcement came that the fight was declared a no-contest due to the referee's error, which means nobody wins and nobody loses — and Ogden will only be in line for his show money through no fault of his own.

"I'm pretty disappointed right now," Ogden said afterward. "I'm in the third round of a tough fight, I've got bills to pay and a no-contest? I deserve my win money. I don't care about records, whatever, but I better get paid because I'm in mounted arm triangle, I heard the ref tell him three times to show him he was still there, and on the third time, he stops the fight. I didn't stop the fight.

"If he just let it go two more minutes, Nik would have never got out of mount, I win, I get my money. I don't understand."

There was no explanation for the stoppage or the decision to declare the fight a no-contest before the action in the UFC APEX quickly moved to the next fight.

To make matters worse, Ogden was up 20-18 on two of the judges' scorecards and was dominating the third round as well, which would have led to a unanimous decision victory if not for the stoppage.

Instead, Ogden leaves with a no-contest with hopes that the UFC will still take care of him financially after having his win reversed.