Alessio Sakara’s Manager Filing Appeal; Wants Rematch with Patrick Cote on Neutral Ground

Alessio Sakara left Montreal on Saturday with a loss on his record by disqualification after he believed he had been the first fighter ever to knock out Patrick Cote.

The Italian slugger clocked Cote with a big elbow early in the first round, dropping him to the canvas where he continued to reign blows down upon him.

After a couple of shots landed to the ear, Sakara continued to throw hammer fist after hammer fist with several of them landing to the back of Cote’s head. After several shots, referee Dan Miragliotta swooped in to stop the fight but after a confusing few minutes the end result was Sakara being disqualified for illegal shots to the back of the head, and Cote being handed the victory.

Following the bout, Sakara’s manager Lex McMahon of Alchemist MMA immediately came to his client’s aid asking the commission for a ruling on why the fight was ruled a disqualification when he believes the referee ultimately didn’t do his job this time around.

“In the heat of the moment, some of those blows did land to the back of the head, they were unintentional, and at no point was Alessio provided a warning. The action should have been stopped, Alessio should have been placed off to the side, and Patrick should have been given a chance to collect himself if those were in fact illegal blows. Dan didn’t do any of that,” McMahon told MMAWeekly Radio on Sunday.

While McMahon says that Miragliotta is typically a very good referee, in this instance he made a mistake, and it cost Sakara the fight.

Now with the fight already over, McMahon will file an appeal with the Quebec Athletic Commission on Monday requesting that the result be overturned either to a win for Sakara as originally ruled or into a no-contest. At that point, he’s hopeful the UFC will rematch Cote and Sakara in early 2013 in somewhere other than Canada.

“I want it on neutral territory, it’s obvious Alessio’s not going to get a fair shake in Canada,” said McMahon. “I think a great place would be London in February. That’s neutral territory for both guys. Makes a lot of sense.”

Check out the entire interview with McMahon below where he details the night’s events and what went down after the cameras stopped rolling: