1. Steve Mazzagatti
You had to know that Mazzagatti would be the top of this list. At one point it was Dana White’s goal in life to rip on Mazzagatti as often as possible. He finally did succeed in Mazzagatti’s unspoken black-balling from MMA refereeing.
While Mazzagatti’s resume of poor refereeing is endless, there are a few examples that many point to as his most infamous. The first is probably his disqualification of Jon Jones in his fight against Matt Hamill. MMA fans are reminded of this decision every time they point to Jon Jones as the greatest fighter of all time, and some new fan asks who was the guy who beat him. There have been countless unnecessary conversations about the 12-6 elbow rule as a result of that “1” in the loss column of Jon Jones’. In that case it was really more than rule that was the problem, but nevertheless.
Another big Mazzagatti moment was during Brock Lesnar’s UFC debut, when Mazzagatti deducted a point from Lesnar for hitting the back of Mir’s head. The point was deducted without warning.
Here is Dana White ripping on Mazzagatti.