Invicta 21 went down at the Scottish Rite Temple in Kansas City, MO Saturday night. The event, aired on UFC Fight Pass, turned out to be an excellent card filled with entertaining bouts. However, one of the most exciting, back-and-forth fights was marred by controversy due to a non-stoppage. That was the strawweight scrap between Amy Montenegro and Celine Haga, a jiu-jitsu clinic with a number of odd moments.
The first came at the end of the first round, when Haga tapped out to an arm-bar Montenegro had locked on — however, the tap came after the bell. The fight was then allowed to continue. After any number of close calls, it looked like Montenegro was up on the scorecards, until the dying seconds of the third round. Then, Haga managed to sink in a choke. As the seconds ticked away, Montenegro appeared to go limp. As the buzzer sounded the end the final frame, ref Greg Franklin moved in to separate the fighters, but Montenegro still wasn’t moving.
At that point, it appeared Franklin waived off the fight. Yet while Montenegro was being attended to, he signaled that it was going to the scorecards. Despite being choked unconscious before the final bell, Amy Montenegro was awarded a decision victory (29-28, 29-28, 29-28).
The decision did not sit well with many fighters watching the event.
And in the replay you can see Montenegro went out before the bell rang. Haga won by TKO. Going to the judges is inept. #InvictaFC21
— Josh Barnett (@JoshLBarnett) January 15, 2017
WTF?!Almost a tap in the last second of the 1st and technical submission as the 3rd ends? Two subs and it's going to the cards? #InvictaFC21
— Angela Hill (@AngieOverkill) January 15, 2017
Word! That's gotta get overturned. She was OUT COLD. This fight was straight up wacky. #InvictaFC21 https://t.co/DBoaXcMuM5
— Aljamain Sterling (@FunkMaster_UFC) January 15, 2017
By the end of the evening, ref Big John McCarthy, possibly one of the most knowledgeable people in regards to the Unified Rules of MMA, chimed in, telling MMAFighting that “the rule is if the fight finishes with an athlete unconscious in a submission, the result is a submission victory for the athlete applying the submission.” While taking place at the end of the first round and not the full 15 minutes, he most high profile example of this would be Invicta alumnus Raquel Pennington’s bulldog choke win over Ashlee Evans-Smith at UFC 181 in December 2014.
Haga does have the option of appealing the outcome. Historically, at least when it comes to Invicta fights, Missouri’s athletic commission (the Missouri Division of Professional Regulation, Office of Athletics) has been better than most at retroactively correcting referee error. Commissions are generally hesitant to award wins when overturning a decision (and some may not even be able to in their bylaws), but it would be surprising if this wasn’t at least changed to a no contest.
