What, you trying to tell me you hadn't noticed that Yamakasi had been missing since the Shevchenko-Cachoeira fight in 2018????

Yeah, me neither. Don't know why he gave it up for a while but he's announced he's trying to make a come-back but apparently has no aspirations of going back to the UFC. At least at the moment. But I don't expect Yamasaki II to be any more popular of a referee than Yamasaki I was.

Mario already is getting the rough edge of Michael Chiesa's tongue. Chisea lost a fight to Kevin Lee in 2017 when Yamasaki ruled him out by rear naked choke, but Chisea didn't appear to be in trouble, Yamasaki made no apparent effort to 'test' his consciousness, and Michael sprang to his feet as soon as Lee let go of the choke.

And here's the punch stats from Shevchenko-Cachoeira (2018). Shevchenko mercifully ended the fight in the second with a submission but Yamasaki caught no end of shit after this for the obvious reason.



Shevchenko outstruck Cachoeira 43 to 2 in the first round, yet Yamasaki let the fight continue. You have to wonder if people would have been so upset if the fighter on the short end had been a man, but my general feeling is that Cachoeira's corner has a much more fine-tuned sense of whether their fighter is hurt than Yamasaki does. And they would have known she stood no chance to win after the first round, yet they didn't throw in the towel. Because even if you know you're getting your ass kicked, you're supposed to gut it out to the bitter end (unless you're at risk of life-threatening or serious permanent injury), because that's sportsmanship. But what's clear to me is that Yamasaki has had so much more than his share of controversial calls for such a long time, ... well, as they say, where there's smoke, ... there's fire.