LAS VEGAS – The extra time Yoel Romero got between the second and third rounds of his bout with Tim Kennedy will not go without protest.
Kennedy co-manager Nick Palmisciano told MMAjunkie he plans to appeal the fight's official result, a third-round TKO for Romero on the main card of Saturday's UFC 178.
"The guy couldn't answer the bell," Palmisciano wrote via text. "And he admitted in the interview he couldn't get up. Pretty sure that's a DQ."
In fact, it is considered a TKO when a fighter cannot answer the bell for the next round after a requisite one-minute break. However, a total of 37 seconds elapsed between the "seconds out" warning given by the timekeeper with the overseeing Nevada State Athletic Commission and the start of the third round in Kennedy vs. Romero.
The total time in between the second and third round, meanwhile, was just short of 90 seconds.
In a separate text to MMAjunkie,
Kennedy wrote, "I'm super disappointed and pissed. In all my years in the sport I have never seen such a blatant cheat."
Kennedy did not respond to a text asking to confirm whether he'll appeal the decision.
Romero was badly hurt by a flurry of punches thrown by Kennedy at the end of the second round and was saved by the bell. He went to his corner and was attended to by his cornermen. But when his seconds were prompted to leave the corner, they hesitated, walking slowly out of the octagon and neglecting to take his stool.
Admonished by referee John McCarthy and an official for the Nevada State Athletic Commission, which oversaw the event, a Romero second then reentered the cage and wiped down what appeared to be a glob of Vaseline before McCarthy took the stool. More time passed as McCarthy hailed Romero to start the round.
The crowd loudly booed the sequence of events and Romero despite a miraculous comeback in the third round. He landed a flurry of punches that forced referee McCarthy to intervene at the 0:58 mark of the round.
Asked by UFC commentator to estimate the effect of the extra time between rounds, Romero first praised his cornerman's encouragement, then apologized and said he didn't delay the action on purpose.
Now, Kennedy's camp will find out whether the NSAC agrees.
"If you can't get off the stool in a minute the fight is over," Kennedy told UFC interviewers after the fight. "Not a minute and a half, not two minutes, not two and a half minutes while your coaches are still putting Vaseline on you and toweling you off. That fight should've been over, period."
