Aspen Ladd lost her appeal to the California State Athletic Commission, where she argued her TKO loss to Germaine de Randamie at UFC Sacramento should be overturned.
Ladd argued the fight was stopped too early by ref Herb Dean, and asked for the verdict be ruled No Contest. Ladd’s team argued that the same fight between male athletes would have been allowed to continue. “This is about, are women being treated equally in the sport of mixed martial arts,” her manager Dave Hirschbein said. Ladd added “I’ve had people question my chin moreso than a male teammate, for example. It’s common for people to believe we function at a lesser degree than the males in the sport.”
CSAC executive officer Andy Foster defended Dean, calling him “the best referee in the world right now.” However commissioner Martha Shen-Urquidez said the stoppage was a “violation of the anti-discrimination laws in the state of California,” and that it was “not okay, even if it’s not intentional.”
Dean, a veteran referee of 17 years, denied he stopped the fight because it was between two women. “I’m not a gender discriminator,” he said. Instead, he stopped the fight because Ladd stopped defending herself. “I don’t believe that she is aware of where her opponent is…I don’t see her doing any of the things that I would call intelligent defense.”
Ultimately the CSAC voted 3-2 to uphold the TKO verdict. The vote was split on gender lines.
