Darren Stewart's UFC Fight Night 100 TKO of Francimar Barroso flipped to no-contest by Brazil commission

The opening bout of this past Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 100 event in Brazil had plenty of controversy. Now it no longer has a winner.

The The Comissao Atletica Brasileira de MMA (CABMMA) today released a statement saying the light heavyweight bout between Darren Stewart and Brazilian opponent Francimar Barroso has been changed from a TKO win for Stewart to a no-contest. Barroso had appealed the loss following the fight.

The bout opened up the preliminary card of UFC Fight Night 100 event at Ibirapuera Gymnasium in Sao Paulo. It streamed on UFC Fight Pass ahead of the rest of the card on FS1.

In the fight, Stewart (7-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC) clinched with Barroso (18-5 MMA, 3-2 UFC) almost immediately and wanted to take the fight to the canvas. As Barroso tried to move out, Stewart, who was making his UFC debut, came forward in the clinch – but his head hit Barroso’s face.

Barroso immediately covered his face while Stewart rained punches down on him on the ground. The referee, Eduardo Herdy, jumped in to stop the fight just 94 seconds into the first round – for a TKO win for Stewart.

After the fight, Stewart said he believed the stoppage was justified.

“I think it was fair,” Stewart said. “A fight is a fight. It is what it is, you know? I did what I had to do and the ref jumped in. If it was me in that situation, it would have been the same thing – a fight is a fight. If I did headbutt, he would have gone down straight away, but he carried on.”

CABMMA, however, looked back at the fight and disagreed. (See the commission’s explanation of the reversal and statement here.) After getting Herdy’s side of the story, the commission said upon review of the fight, its executive committee said the referee had an opportunity to use the newly implemented instant replay after the fight was over to see if the headbutt occurrred.

The commission said Herdy would have called for time had he seen the headbutt from a better angle, and should have after seeing Barroso ask for it following the incident; that Herdy should have given Stewart a warning for the headbutt, even if unintentional; and that the incident directly led to the outcome of the fight.

And just like that, Stewart’s UFC debut victory now is a UFC debut no-contest.

And for complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 100, check out the UFC Events section of the site.