Jake Ellenberger plans to appeal strange loss to Jorge Masvidal

On Saturday night, the UFC returned to Las Vegas, Nevada with the finale of the latest season of The Ultimate Fighter. The card produced a handful of excellent fights, as Demetrious Johnson and Tim Elliot entertained in the main event, Joseph Benavidez and Henry Cejudo thrilled in the co-main event, and Ion Cutelaba and Jared Cannonier delivered a thriller earlier on the main card.

The card also produced one of the strangest finishes in UFC history. This finish occurred in the fourth bout of the main card, when Jorge Masvidal and Jake Ellenberger duked it out at welterweight.

Midway through the first round, Ellenberger got his foot stuck in the edge of the cage. Effectively caught in a bear trap, he was unable to escape Masvidal’s ferocious onslaught, which forced a stop to the action. After a brief moment of confusion, it was then announced that Masvidal had won the bout by TKO.

“It was very bizarre. My foot got caught in the fence and I assumed [the fight] would be restarted – at least that’s how I understood it, ” Ellenberger explained in a post-fight interview on Fox Sports 1. “I could defend myself because my mind was clear and I assumed he would restart it. But then they told me it was over, so i have no idea.”

Given the strange nature of this loss, and the fact that the TKO might have been avoided if he was mobile, Ellenberger explained that he plans to appeal the loss in the hopes that it will be changed to a no contest.

“We keep moving forward, that’s all we can do,” he said.” [We will] appeal and hopefully it gets turned into a no contest.”

Because no fighter has ever lost after getting their foot stuck in the cage before, there is not a lot of precedent for the commission to work with when deciding whether to change this bout’s result or not. Given this, it will be interesting to see what they decide.

Do you think the bout should be ruled a no contest? Sound off, PENN Nation!