Spine-flipping LFA fighter Drew Chatman could get additional punishment for celebration

The California State Athletic Commission (CSAC) is considering additional reprimands against Drew Chatman following his infamous post-knockout celebration at LFA 36 last Friday.

After a bizarre finishing sequence in which Irvins Ayala (1-0) was knocked out by falling on Chatman’s (0-1) knee, Chatman got up and did a front-flip off his opponent’s downed body. What would’ve been a win resulted in a disqualification for Chatman, who received a 90-day suspension for unsportsmanlike conduct and the withholding of his contracted $500 purse.

CSAC Executive Director Andy Foster said more penalties could be on the way, though. Chatman expressed remorse for his actions in an interview with MMAFighting.com, and while Foster said that’s appreciated, the utterly callous nature of the situation is admittedly hard to forgive.

“It is helpful that he has apologized publicly for this, but there’s no defense in what he did,” Foster told MMAjunkie. “I had to watch the replay to believe what I thought I’d just saw. That’s an incredibly rare thing to do. There’s no defense for this whatsoever. I’m just at a bit of a loss at this, because I’ve never seen anything like this before.

“When you’re dealing with it I’m trying to figure out what to call it, because it basically violated about four rules at the same time.”

The whole incident involving Drew “The Honorable” Chatman – Have you ever seen anything quite like this? ?? #LFA36 • • • ?? @lfafighting – @axstvfights

A post shared by MMAjunkie (@mmajunkiedotcom) on Mar 24, 2018 at 9:22am PDT

Foster said it’s a difficult circumstance to navigate. Aside from experiencing a knockout, Ayala had no additional injuries. He easily could have, though, given the significant risk in a heavyweight of Chatman’s size using someone’s spine as a springboard.

Chatman has come under heavy fire from the MMA community since footage of the “post-lim” bout from LFA 36 came to light. Some have gone as far as to call for the fighter, who is ironically nicknamed “The Honorable,” to be banned from the sport permanently, but Foster said he doesn’t expect repercussions to be quite that severe.

“I don’t foresee that right now,” Foster said. “He shouldn’t have done it. He knows he shouldn’t have done it. It’s totally unbecoming of the sport. It’s a discredit to mixed martial arts, but he’s admitted all of that. We implemented there cageside the maximum punishments we could do while we were there on the ground looking at it. We disqualified him, so therefore he lost the fight.

“When you’re disqualified you’re not able to receive compensation, so he didn’t get any money. Then we gave him a suspension for unsportsmanlike conduct, under Rule 390. Then I may do additional things to his license when I’m able to review it even further.”

Whether additional sanctions are placed on Chatman’s license remain to be seen, but regardless, Foster said the fighter has put himself on the radar of his commission and likely many others for all the wrong reasons.

“I just never have seen anything like that before,” Foster said. “The biggest thing is everyone has to have their fights approved when they move forward. So we’ll be watching this one really close. I can assure you.”

For complete coverage of LFA 36, check out the MMA Events section of the site.