Cat Zingano Filed Appeal In Bizarre UFC 232 Loss To Megan Anderson
Cat Zingano fought the former Invicta champ Megan Anderson at the preliminary card of UFC 232, on December 29, 2018, in Inglewood, California. The match ended up in a highly controversial stoppage.
Early in the first round, Megan Anderson delivered a left high kick to Zingano’s face. But her toe scraped Zingano’s eye, causing serious damage to her iris and retina. “Alpha” was unable to continue. The referee Marc Goddard stopped the match at 1:01 and declared Anderson a winner.
Now Cat Zingano appeals the loss, arguing there is no difference between a toe and a finger to the eye. You can read the details below.
“The language of the Unified Rules regarding eye gouging is non exhaustive and the examples listed, namely ‘eye gouging by means of fingers, chin, or elbow,’ are not meant as the only methods by which a foul may occur,” reads the appeal (via MMAjunkie). “First, the language is plainly open ended, beginning with ‘eye gouging of any kind.…’ Had the Unified Rules intended to limit this foul to only the examples that followed and exclude toes from this foul, this rule would have been written with limiting language such as, ‘only eye gouging by means of fingers, chin, or elbow is illegal’ and omit the words ‘of any kind.’
“Additionally, had this rule been meant to limit this foul to only the examples that followed and exclude toes, then by the same logic, a thumb to the eye would not be foul as the rule merely mentions fingers, not thumbs.”
It is expected Cat Zingano will get the opportunity to appeal the case at CSAC hearing in February.
Also, Megan’s toe-to-eye strike was heavily criticized on social media. Yet, Anderson states she didn’t target opponent’s eyeball intentionally. The Australian is “more than happy” to rematch Cat Zingano.
“I’ve had that move executed three times now just finishing fights, so I obviously wasn’t aiming for her eyeball,” Anderson said. “I was getting a lot of shit for that, ‘You’re a dirty cheater’ and stuff like that.
“I’m pretty sure anyone who is in the sport knows that when you kick someone, you aim for someone’s face, the last thing you’re thinking about is trying to poke them in the friggin’ eyeball. The rules is what it is, but they want a rematch, we’re more than happy to give it to them if that’s what they want.”
Do you think Anderson’s strike was illegal? Will this match be overturned to no contest? Would you like to see Cat Zingano Vs Megan Anderson 2 soon?
