FanHouse Dan Miragliotta

Bas Rutten is a legendary figure in mixed martial arts, a former UFC champion, and currently the trainer for Kimbo Slice.

Because of his affiliation with Kimbo, everyone wants to know what Rutten thinks about Kimbo's victory over James Thompson on Saturday night. Rutten answers with a post on his official web site, and although he mostly defends Kimbo, he says something shocking at the end: He actually thinks referee Dan Miragliotta should have stopped the fight and awarded it to Thompson late in the second round. Rutten writes:

People ask me if the fight should have been stopped at the end in the second round, I say YES because those are the rules, it should have been stopped because Kimbo didn't do anything to improve his situation. But I think what made the ref NOT do it was the fact that Kimbo was giving his thumbs up the whole time to let the referee know that he was OK.
This was the refs decission, not Kimbo's.

So Rutten believes Thompson should have been awarded the victory late in the second round. I disagree.

Although I think referee Dan Miragliotta was a little quick to stop it, I do not believe that Saturday night's Kimbo Slice vs. James Thompson fight was fixed. But a lot of people do believe that, and I think it's fair to give their side of the story. This video is the best case I've seen so far:

So why do I believe the EliteXC fight was legit?

Mixed martial arts referee Dan Miragliotta was harshly criticized by CBS announcer Gus Johnson on Saturday night for stopping the Kimbo Slice vs. James Thompson fight.

Since then he's been more than harshly criticized -- some MMA bloggers have even suggested that the fight was fixed.

In an interview with Cokin and Cofield on ESPN Radio in Las Vegas, Miragliotta defended his decision. Saying the criticism of the stoppage comes from "13-year-old kids on the web that never fought a day in their life," Miragliotta said his reason for stopping the fight was simple:

"Why I stopped the fight was the uppercut-cross-hook-uppercut combination that knocked him on his ass -- well, not on his ass, but it knocked him into the fence. I looked into his eyes. I saw the blank stare, I knew he was out of it, I stopped the fight, and when I grabbed him to tell him the fight was over he still thought he was fighting Kimbo. He tried to take a swing at me and didn't realize where he was at."

In the 12 hours since the first mixed martial arts show on prime time network television, I've received dozens of questions from people who are new to the sport and aren't quite sure what they saw when Kimbo Slice beat James Thompson. I'll answer some of those questions here.

Although I have mixed feelings about the overall quality of the mixed martial arts show that EliteXC and CBS put on Saturday night, I am glad that the reputation of Gus Johnson as one of America's best sports broadcasters emerged unscathed. Here's how Johnson called the end of the Kimbo Slice-James Thompson fight:

Johnson showed his trademark enthusiasm for the event, but when referee Dan Miragliotta stepped in and stopped the fight, awarding the bout to Slice, Johnson shouted "Terrible stoppage! Terrible! Terrible! ... James Thompson was not ready to go down! Horrendous!"

Then Johnson stepped into the cage with Slice for the post-fight interview and noted twice that the stoppage was "controversial." There were concerns that CBS would sugarcoat its coverage of EliteXC, but Johnson didn't let that happen.

The burly bald guy you see in the above photo is mixed martial arts referee Dan Miragliotta. As UFC fans know, Miragliotta is an enormous man (6-foot-4, 296 pounds) who has no trouble with the physically strenuous job of separating two fighters. Clearly, he is not someone you want to mess with.

And yet mess with Miragliotta is exactly what a fan at UFC 83 did.

Mr. Sunshine reports that a fan at the Bell Centre in Montreal jumped over a barrier and charged toward the Octagon, where he crossed paths with Miragliotta -- who promptly put him in a rear-naked choke. The photo you see is the aftermath, as Miragliotta and security personnel check on the fan.

Miragliotta told Mr. Sunshine via e-mail, "I didn't want to hurt the guy so I was just going to put him to sleep and then help get him out of there before he hurt someone or himself." Well done, sir.