It is not being melodramatic to say that a referee in combat sports has the fighters’ lives in his hands when he works a bout. On Saturday, during the preliminary card of UFC 267 at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi, referee Vyacheslav Kiselev should be thankful that a tragedy did not occur.
Kiselev handled a bout between Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos and Benoit Saint-Denis about as poorly as a referee at the highest levels of mixed martial arts has ever handled a bout.
Zaleski was pummeling Saint-Denis in the second round, landing clean, hard strikes with his hands and knees with little in return from Saint-Denis.