Landing 15 unanswered shots, Muhammed Lawal nearly beat Lorenz Larkin into oblivion to pick up his ninth career win. "King Mo" was far from jubilant. In fact, he was angry following the victory. Lawal lashed out at the referee Kim Winslow for not protecting his opponent.
In the ring, Lawal screamed out a suggestion that Winslow shouldn't be reffing fights. In the postfight press conference, he brought it even stronger.
"The commission, they need to like to do something with her ... let her take a fight or something and give her a bad ref. Let her fight [Cristiane] "Cyborg" Santos and let's do a late stoppage with her," said Lawal."The tables need to be turned. Put me in there as a ref and I'll do a terrible job like her."
Winslow's decision to allow a limp Larkin to absorb 6-8 extra punches was shaky, but her explanation to Lawal was even worse.
"She said 'well, I wanted to give him every opportunity to bounce back. If it takes for him to be asleep, that's what it is,'" said Lawal. "She's never taken a punch before, so it's easy for her to say that."
Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker suggested that it been rough night overall for the Nevada State Athletic Commission appointed referees and judges.
In an earlier fight, Winslow also allowed Gian Villante to finish off Trevor Smith with two illegal shots to the back of the head. Smith spoke to Aaron Tru about the end of the fight and said Winslow "has no business in the sport." Smith said Winslow tried to make up for a poor early stoppage in his fight by allowing Larkin to take an extra beating.
The scoring in two other fights confused cageside observers. Most onlookers thought Tyron Woodley rolled to a 30-27 decision over Jordan Mein, but one judge gave it 29-28 to Mein, who spent most of the fight on his back. The same goes for James Terry's loss to Nah-Shon Burrell got the nod 29-28 on two scorecards and looked completely shocked when he was announced as the winner.
