Don’t expect Marc Goddard to referee UFC welterweight champion Leon Edwards’ upcoming fight – or any of his fights for that matter.
Edwards (21-3 MMA, 13-2 UFC) defends his title in a rematch vs. Belal Muhammad (23-3 MMA, 14-3 UFC) in the UFC 304 headliner July 27 at Co-op Live in Manchester, England.
The renowned referee has officiated some of the biggest fights in UFC history and has had the likes of Colby Covington disagree with him on certain stoppages. But that’s not why Goddard won’t referee Edwards’ fights. The Brit has a pretty valid reason.
“Here’s a classic case: Leon Edwards. You’ve never seen me referee Leon Edwards in the UFC, and you never will. Why? Because I was Leon Edwards’ first MMA coach,” Goddard said on the Overdogs Podcast. Way, way, way back when he was just an amateur. But again, the common-sense element for me, even though the link is so – who knew then when Leon first walked into that gym as a raw amateur, a raw novice with no experience? Now look at him.
“UFC welterweight champion of the world, but you’ve never saw me referee him, and you never will because we just keep it out of the way. I just don’t want any hassle, and I don’t want to be put in a predicament where I’m making a call that could go against him, so it’s both ways.”
There are other fights Goddard has preferred not to referee but for personal reasons. He gave an example of Israel Adesanya and when he refereed his title fight against Alex Pereira at UFC 281. Pereira scored a standing TKO of Adesanya, who immediately protested the stoppage. Adesanya insisted it was early, but Goddard stood by his call.
“Do you remember when Israel Adesanya fought Pereira for the second time in Miami? I specifically requested not to do that fight,” Goddard continued. “The reason I requested not to do the fight was because I was thinking about Izzy, I was thinking about him. Me and him are fine. I’ve refereed him since, I’ve refereed his fight with Sean Strickland, but I actually removed myself because what I didn’t want to do was for Izzy to have me walk into the dressing room.
“I was thinking of the fighter then. ‘This is his night, it’s all about him.’ I didn’t want to walk into that dressing room and him to have any form of negative connotation or something like that. So, I just thought that the right thing to do and the fairest thing to do by him is just stay out of the fight and give it to another ref, and I requested from the commission not to do it. There’s been a couple of incidents where there’s certain fighters that I would rather not (referee) for personal reasons.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 304.
