UFC boss: Adlan Amagov 'scary,' but unhappy with ref's late stop of Waldburger

HOUSTON – Dana White being unhappy with a referee is par for the course at most UFC events, and Saturday night was no exception.

This time, the referee in question was Jay Stafin on the preliminary card of UFC 166, which took place at Toyota Center in Houston.

Stafin officiated the fight between Adlan Amagov (13-2-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC) and T.J. Waldburger (16-8 MMA, 4-3 UFC), a fight that streamed on MMAjunkie.com and Facebook.

Amagov drilled Waldburger with a spinning back kick to the midsection, then unleashsed a series of short punches that put the American on the canvas. Stafin eventually stopped the fight three minutes into the first – but not before Waldburger was hit with several big follow-up punches on the ground.

Those punches got a quick reaction from White on Twitter: “That ref sucks!!!!!”

It wasn’t mentioned on the broadcast, but Waldburger had to be loaded onto a stretcher and taken to a local hospital for evaluation following the knockout loss. He later was released when CT scans and other tests came back negative.

But after the fight, the incident left White with a pair of impressions. The first? Amagov is good.

“That dude is scary,” White said. “It’s crazy how you’ve got a wrestler who’s holding that single-(leg takedown), and you always see this where they’re driving around. The guy hits so hard that he knocked him out with short little punches like this. That dude is nasty.”

After going 3-1 for Strikeforce, Amagov debuted in the UFC in April with a decision win over Chris Spang at UFC on FUEL TV 9 in Sweden.

And White’s second impression? Amagov may be good, but Stafin is not.

“Whenever a guy gets knocked out, and especially when a guy takes more punches than he should, it always freaks me out,” he said. “The one punch knocks you out, and then for him to take more punishment after that when he’s out, I go f—ing crazy, man. I hate it. it makes me crazy. 

“I jumped up and I was screaming at that referee tonight – screaming at him. ‘Do your f—ing job! Get your skinny ass in there and stop that f—ing fight when this guy is out cold and getting hit.’ Oh, I hate it so bad. It makes me sick.”

Waldburger, a Texas native fighting in his home state, was on a 3-1 run before the knockout loss.

For complete coverage of UFC 166, stay tuned to the UFC Events section of the site.

(Pictured: Adlan Amagov)