CAGE 57: Santalahti vs Sekulic Result Overturned

The CAGE 57 fight between Olli Santalahti and Stefan Sekulic has been overturned by the Finnish MMA Federation to a No Contest due to the outcome of the processing of the protest filed by Santalahti after the fight. Originally the result was a split decision victory for Sekulic.  

CAGE events in Finland are sanctioned by the Finnish MMA Federation. The Finnish MMA federation also appoints the judges to all sanctioned MMA events in Finland. CAGE has no control nor influence in judging or protests on any level. CAGE wishes to make evenly matched fights in which both fighters have even chances to win and does everything in CAGE’s influence to treat all fighters in an equal and fair manner.

Santalahti filed a protest to the federation after the fight demanding that the first round or the whole fight be scored again and the result be changed.

The fight was scored live cageside by Sini-Marja Heikkinen, Gustavo Lugo and Markku Lähde.

The scores were as follow:

Judge Heikkinen scored: 10-9 Sekulic, 10-9 Sekulic, 10-9 Santalahti = 29-28 Sekulic

Judge Lugo scored: 10-9 Sekulic, 10-9 Sekulic, 10-9 Santalahti = 29-28 Sekulic

Judge Lähde scored: 10-9 Santalahti, 10-9 Sekulic, 10-9 Santalahti = 29-28 Santalahti

Winner by Split decision: Sekulic.

The protest was processed by the Finnish MMA Federation in cooperation with the Finnish MMA judges associaton. The first round of the fight has been scored again based on video footage by judges that were not on-site at the event. The judges were Asse Hokkanen, Jani Peltonen and Timo Anttila.

Based on video all judges scored the first round for Santalahti 10-9. 

Based on the new scoring of the first round, the Finnish MMA Federation unanimously ruled the protest as accepted and changed the result of the fight to No Contest. The members of the Finnish MMA Federation Aleksi Kainulainen and Harri Niva did no participate in the process because of incapacity due to ties to Santalahti.

The fight in it's entirety can be watched below: