Why wasn't the Ilia Topuria UFC White House fight stopped sooner?
A doctor said no more after R3. Then referee Marc Goddard and UFC doctor Jeff Davidson stepped in.
A referee under the Unified Rules is the sole arbiter of whether or not a fight should be stopped due to medical concerns.
That’s per the Association of Boxing Commission’s version of the Unified Rules.
Funnily enough, under California’s Business & Professions Code statute 18707, a doctor has the right to stop a fight when conferring with a referee.
What a dilemma for California State Athletic Commission Executive Officer Andy Foster… and for ABC Governmental Affairs Chairman, also Andy Foster.
It’s not a coincidence that conflicts of interest would surface during a somewhat self-regulated UFC event at the White House.
Instead of allowing Andrew Huff and the DC sports commission to sanction & regulate President Trump’s 80th birthday bash, the Pope of UFC regulatory affairs Marc Ratner outsourced “sanctioning” to trade organization ABC.
It just so happens that Andy Foster (California) and Tim Shipman (Florida), who had event oversight over UFC White House, were also the two men who publicly testified in Congress on behalf of the TKO-written Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act.
Random, right?
Which meant that this was Andy Foster’s show to run, at least on paper. He brought along a California crew of officials and his lead athletic inspector, the omnipresent Mark Relyea.
The thing is, who had final say when controversy hit the fan during a fight at UFC White House?
It turns out, maybe UFC did.
As Ilia Topuria was getting blasted by Justin Gaethje in an absolute war of attrition at the main event of UFC White House, the motto of The Show Must Go On became crystal clear.
At the end of Round 3, Topuria’s eyes were a mess. A doctor whose name has not been reported entered the cage and performed a basic examination. The doctor did not like what we saw. He indicated that the fight should be stopped.
It would have been a responsible and respectable decision if Marc Goddard had decided to stop the fight. The problem is that UFC White House was a celebration of President Trump and Mark Shapiro’s manosphere destiny doctrine. Think about all the fans that would have left unsatisfied and unhappy. What kind of regrets would the competitors have had if Topuria didn’t fight in the fourth round?
In a Tuesday interview with Ariel Helwani, Andy Foster defended Marc Goddard’s decision to allow the fight to go into round four.
Andy Foster: “I was right there and I was listening to this... and [Topuria] wanted to continue. He absolutely wanted to continue. He did not want to end that fight. The fighter himself is wanting this to continue.
“And then when the other doctor got in, took a look, they conversed and Marc Goddard let it go out for the fourth round as the fighter wanted.
“I’ve seen a lot of fights. That’s a championship fight. Huge fight. It’s the main event. Take The White House piece away from it. It’s the main event in the biggest stage in the world, UFC.
“I think that Topuria has earned the right to swim in the deep end of the pool. I think it was correct in that circumstance to let him go out there.
“If this had been a three round debut fight in California that’s not called the UFC where they’re just getting started, you’re going to look at that a little bit different because you don’t have that history of the fighter.
“But this fighter was undefeated, still had a chance to win, he was still in this thing until he wasn’t. And I mean, he was certainly declining but I think I can make the argument that Gaethje was tired as well.”
Otherwise known as the “well, it depends” line of argument.
What wasn’t explicitly stated by either Mr. Foster or Mr. Helwani is that “the second doctor” in question happens to be UFC’s medical director, Dr. Jeff Davidson.
If that name rings a bell, Dr. Davidson was publicly named in media reports regarding a testosterone hall pass scandal that plagued the UFC in the first half of the 2010s. You had active, high-level MMA fighters proclaiming a need for a Therapeutic Use Exemption to use testosterone because of a medical condition called hypogonadism. Keith Kizer, then the Executive Director of the Nevada Athletic Commission, had had enough of that mess and transitioned back to the Nevada Attorney General’s office.
Let’s just say that Dr. Davidson is a company guy. If Dr. Davidson felt the fight should have stopped due to Ilia Topuria’s eye injuries, Marc Goddard would have probably been persuaded to do so.
Looming like a ghost over the proceedings was Dana White’s previously expressed discontent over Tom Aspinall’s eye injury in his Abu Dhabi fight against Cyril Gane.
In the land of UFC, the show must go on. Of course, Ilia Topuria wanted to continue fighting. There was a degree of both personal and professional pressure to do so. But at what cost? How many years were shaved off of Topuria’s life by the extra punishment he received from Justin Gaethje in round four?
This YouTube video by Doctor Dynamo does a great job of breaking down the visual impairment and injury concerns Ilia Topuria was facing at the end of round three.
Doctor Dynamo: “Topuria sits on the stool. His corner gets to work and through the translated corner audio we hear something alarming. [Topuria] reportedly says that he cannot see out of his right eye. In the medical hierarchy of combat sports, if a fighter can’t see, they can’t adequately defend themselves. The protocol is immediately activated and it’s pretty simple. The ringside physician steps in to assess the athlete. Now, first the physician performs an exam. They’re testing pupiliary response, testing visual tracking, and assessing cranial nerve function. Then comes the medical call.
“Now, based on the broadcast footage, it appears that the physician was concerned about Topuria’s ability to adequately track during the exam. The doctor shakes his head. He looks towards referee Marc Goddard and appears to recommend that the fight be stopped. Then came what appears to be an overrule. Another physician [Dr. Jeff Davidson] looks like he steps in. It’s not clear who the second person really is, but Goddard then enters a conversation. After a brief exchange, the fight’s allowed to continue. Now, we saw the doctor appear to wave it off. Then we saw the referee appear to say, ‘Yeah, no thanks.’”
When Ariel Helwani asked Andy Foster about why California allows a doctor to stop a fight but not the ABC under their Unified Rules, there was a lot of hemming and hawing.
Andy Foster: “It’s just in our statutes that if the doctor wants a fight stopped, there’s no question. It’s very rare that you have a referee that will not agree with the doctor. And I think what happened in this situation was the doctor initially, but then upon consultation, he decided to okay letting it go.
“Like Dr. Paul Wallace in California is our head doctor. We have a fight like that, he’s always going to be the person assigned and I would guarantee you he would let that fight go. I’d bet good money on that. I think most of the fight doctors see a lot of fights like that fight go in between that, especially if the fighter’s wanting to continue if the corner had done some things to get the eye open enough so we could see good.”
Ilia Topuria’s brother had to make the painful call to stop the fight at the end of round four. It shouldn’t have gotten to that point. The larger point being, there was way too much pressure on everyone involved to let the fight continue. The initial doctor wanted to stop it. The fight continued.
Which raises an obvious question. Was Marc Goddard wrong in letting Topuria fight round four? What was the role of Dr. Davidson in this process? Was it a heat-of-the-moment judgment call? Did UFC politics influence health & safety in the biggest fight on the biggest stage? Let’s review comments made by Big John McCarthy right after the UFC White House event.
John McCarthy: “Your inspector was Alex Ibarra, who’s in that corner because he speaks Spanish and he’s communicating with the corner and so he’s talking to the corner saying, they’re saying he can’t see so he’s trying to get the attention of Marc Goddard to tell him hey they’re saying that he can’t see... Alex is doing the job of trying to give information to the referee to help with the situation and he’s doing the right thing.
“The doctor and the way he handled it and stuff, I don’t know what he was seeing. If you’re looking and saying, it was swelling, it wasn’t the swelling because you could see his eyes saying that, oh, he’s like, he can’t see because of the swelling. No, that doesn’t make sense. I think [the doctor] was going off of the words of what he had heard from Alex to Marc Goddard. I thought Marc did the right thing in saying, ‘Hey, let’s take a look at this and I’m going to give him more time.’
He talked the doctor out of it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. There’s nothing you can do about it. Our thing is to let the fight have what’s truly 50 seconds with their corner, get the information that they can get from their corner and have that time as theirs. We don’t want the doctor to be interfering with them during that time. So now the 50 seconds is over, now it’s their time to get out. And what we’ll do is we’ll call time on the break and bring the doctor in so the doctor can take a look at him. We want the doctor to be as quick as possible but if the doctor needs to take 30, 45, 50 seconds, he can do that.”
Mr. McCarthy compared the punishment Ilia Topuria was receiving to the punishment inflicted on fighters he’s watched in Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship. Topuria was suffering more from the raw pain and punishment rather than obstructed vision from an eye injury.
Marc Goddard is the UFC’s top referee right now. Why would he rock the boat?
But there is an interesting side question that Big John’s video raised…
On the celebration of UFC’s biggest and most-high profile ever, why wasn’t Big John in attendance or working the event as a referee?
It’s not as if Big John hasn’t been complimentary towards TKO politically lately.
Big John has been his blunt and honest self while also playing the political long game. He made his desire to return to officiating crystal clear. When it came time to put over Andy Foster and lobby on behalf of the Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act, McCarthy had his talking points ready at both California State Athletic Commission meetings in 2025.
The UFC, under Endeavor leadership, has done a miserable job of remembering and retelling the history of UFC legends. It’s all about promoting the brand and rewriting the Hollywood script to grab the next business deal.
But there was a strange undertone to the White House proceedings, as Conor McGregor of all people mentioned. Where were the MMA legends? Why was there no recognition and celebration of Georges St. Pierre, who was on hand?
Of all the events to celebrate UFC’s history, you would think the White House event would have been it.
Instead, no legends and no Big John McCarthy officiating. We got plenty of controversy with Herb Dean, however, in the Cyril Gane/Alex Pereira semi-main event. Gane outclassed Pereira but managed to hit the guy in the back of the head in round two while cruising towards capturing the Interim UFC Heavyweight trophy.
Ariel Helwani asked Andy Foster about this subject on Tuesday, and Foster toed the line by stating that some of the blows were likely illegal but that the totality of the situation with Pereira moving made it too hard to admonish Gane.
Andy Foster: “Well, I mean it was during a sequence and I think what started the sequence was [Pereira] was hurt and then he proceeded to, I mean he was scrambling and Cyril was trying to finish him and we have seen that time and time and time again in fight after fight and I’m sure that there are a few [punches] that got through that were probably to the back of the head but I think Herb [Dean] did exactly the right thing. I think a lot of the punches caught the ear. I thought a lot of them were legal. Probably some were not. It was just a fist fight.
“I don’t think you can interrupt a sequence like that during with that much action going on.”
If Alex Pereira wanted to appeal this ruling by referee Herb Dean, who is Pereira going to “appeal” to? Andy Foster, the regulator who oversaw the event and is now on the record saying that Herb Dean made the right decision?
That’s why Luke Thomas and others objected to the UFC appointing ABC to regulate this event. There was a perfectly good DC combat sports commission that could have handled the job.
Instead, Andy Foster and Tim Shipman got the gig. They testified on behalf of the Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act in front of Congress and stand to gain significant authority under this new piece of legislation.
UFC White House was yet another political audition of sorts for Andy Foster under the national spotlight on the biggest stage. It’s hard to watch out for the fighters when so many high-powered actors involved in regulating and producing the fight event have to worry about protecting their own self-interests and the interests of this multi-billion dollar corporation.
Zach Arnold is lead opinion writer for The MMA Draw on Substack. His archives can be read at FightOpinion.com. Contact Zach: fightopinion at protonmail dot com.