"The ref should be banned and fined" - Fans skewer "terrible" refereeing as MMA fighter gets arm snapped and choked unconscious after tapping

The MMA community was recently left shaken by a dismal and incompetent bit of refereeing during the Versus grappling event in Eindhoven last weekend. During a match between Sven Groten and Rene Haendel, the referee missed the tap and failed to notice Groten's arm snapping while he was put to sleep.

During the match, Haendel caught Groten in a triangle-armbar variation that forced the German-born fighter to give up the tap. However, the referee failed to notice the submission and allowed the match to go on. After Groten went unconscious, Haendel snapped his arm while waiting for the referee to stop the contest. Groten was limp for several seconds, which then prompted the referee to step in.

The referee then attempted to wake him up by raising his legs. After Max Randall posted a video of the scene on X, many fans flocked to the post's comments section to express their dismay at the referee's performance.

One fan opined that the referee should be punished and wrote:

"The ref should be banned and fined."

Another fan stated:

"Athlete should be held accountable in some respect too. There’s no way you can miss a limp body and still go for a break and that long of a choke."

One user wrote:

"This is the most awful sh*t I've ever seen in jiu-jitsu. My God."

Check out some more reactions below:

Screenshots from @Max_Randall on X

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MMA doctor on Conor McGregor's broken toe and potential return timeline

An MMA doctor recently shared his thoughts on Conor McGregor's toe injury and shared a potential return timeline for the UFC superstar. Dr. David Abbasi also detailed how the injury could have affected McGregor's performance inside the cage.

McGregor was booked to fight Michael Chandler at UFC 303 in his highly anticipated return to MMA. However, the Irishman was forced to withdraw after suffering an injury. Stating that it was wise on McGregor's part to withdraw from his booking at UFC 303, Dr. Abbasi said:

"This would take about four weeks to heal as do most bony fracture injuries in somebody younger and healthy. This would affect a fighter's ability to put weight on their toes and put their weight forward... This would definitely affect somebody's explosiveness and especially kicking.

Dr. Abbasi continued:

"This would definitely hurt the kicking ability on both sides because of the inability to use your forefoot. Push kicks, forget about it. So, if this was in fact the injury, I think we do have a legitimate reason to delay the fight."

Watch Dr. David Abbasi's full video below: