Saul Rogers and Davy Gallon met at Bellator 296 and the fight ended with a bad stoppage when the referee wrongly thought that one fighter had been put to sleep. The fight was booked pretty late on the preliminary card, and there was only two matches after this until the main card started. The fight started out just as any other fight does and Rogers managed to lock up a D’arce choke after around two minutes of action in the first round. That’s when everything went pretty badly though.
Gallon was defending the D’arce choke by locking up his hands underneath one of his own legs, thereby relieving a lot of the pressure from the choke. It’s a pretty standard defence that is often used to buy the defending grappler some time while he manages to work his way free from the submission. It isn’t actually an escape in and of itself, but it’s a good way to create some room within the choke and get to work on the actual escape you want to do.
Unfortunately for Gallon, the referee Jacob Montalvo mistook his patience for unconsciousness and he called an end to the fight. He wasn’t unconscious at all though, and he immediately started talking to the referee and protesting the bad stoppage at Bellator 296. Rogers was declared the winner initially and had his hand raised in the cage, but the commentator confirmed shortly after the match had finished that the result has been overturned. Thanks to the replay footage available, officials determined that Gallon was not unconscious and the fight was recorded as a no contest instead of a win for Rogers as initially announced.
The footage of the referee stoppage from Saul Rogers v Davy Gallon at Bellator 296 was uploaded in a tweet from the promotion’s official Twitter account:
Did you agree with the stoppage? 🤔
The referee stops the fight in favour of @Saul_Rogers.#Bellator296 @MonsterEnergy Prelims ▶️ https://t.co/NxwCKFPRok pic.twitter.com/NTtGsITsk1
— Bellator MMA (@BellatorMMA) May 12, 2023
