Picture Credit: Instagram
Joel Alvarez beat Marc Diakiese at the O2 Arena in London on Saturday, though not everyone is convinced that the win was very clean. Crucially, the referee missed a clash of heads which shook Diakiese which Alvarez used to his advantage to claim victory in the bout. Despite Diakiese protesting at the moment, referee Dan Mohavedi insisted no rules were broken and that the fight would continue. Diakiese later uploaded the video footage of the clash on his Instagram.
The video showed Alvarez missing a punch and going in, hitting the back of Diakiese’s head with his forehead. The Congolese-born fighter felt the pain just moments later, and touched the area of contact. Normally, during clashes of heads which hurts a fighter, play has to be stopped and the fighter must be given time to recover from the momentary haziness that head injuries can cause.
Diakiese posted the clip on Instagram with the caption, “Not the one to complain but I’ll leave it here.” Fans on social media speculated Diakiese’s chances of getting it overturned after appeal, though not many were optimistic.
Pros react to t he miss
A number of professional mixed martial artists took to social media to react to the referee’s miss, with the majority going in favour of Diakiese.
Aljamain Sterling said, “It’s almost like they group up and say, ‘let’s ignore it and pretend we had a chat’. Or ‘who’d you bet on??’ Ok so let’s leave it like this thing and break me off a piece. It’s disgusting.”
Terrance McKinney reacted on Twitter, stating, “Congrats to Alvarez but that head butt is unfortunate & they’re happening more and more.”
Some, however, took Joel Alvarez’s side. Among them was Jake Hadley, who said, “Congrats to Alvarez but that head butt is unfortunate & they’re happening more and more. Joel was in his right thou to follow up.”
