An MMA referee was banished from the rest of the UFC 267 event because of a highly questionable performance

• A UFC 267 welterweight match that took place Saturday should have been stopped in the second round.
• But an MMA referee called Yacheslav Kiselev allowed the fight to go on.

ABU DHABI - MMA referee Yacheslav Kiselev was relieved of the rest of his UFC 267 duties because of a questionable performance during the preliminary section of the Etihad Arena card in Abu Dhabi.

Kiselev was the man in the middle for the three-round UFC welterweight fight between Elizeu Zaleski and Benoit Saint Denis which Insider attended Saturday.

Zaleski won the opening round on all three of the judges' scorecards, before performing to such a high standard in the second, that he was awarded a 10-8 - a score reserved for dominance.

Such was the ruthlessness of his abilities in that second round, he landed an absurd 106 of his 173 shots, causing a great amount of damage with a knee strike and punishing punches that were nothing short of unrelenting.

Saint Denis was hurt multiple times in the contest but just refused to go down.

To save the fighter from himself, and from taking an extended beating at the hands of Zaleski, ref Kiselev should have stepped in and waved the bout off.

But he didn't.

Instead, he allowed Saint Denis to return to his stool at the end of the second, and reenter the battleground in the third.

The third round, while more even, should never have taken place as the bout was effectively over in the second.

"Holy hell," established former MMA referee John McCarthy tweeted.

"I just watched the worst job of officiating at a UFC event ever," McCarthy added. "Please don't let him do another fight … ever!"

According to ESPN, the UFC "pulled" Kiselev from another fight he was scheduled to officiate.

ESPN reporter Brett Okamoto reported that Kiselev was supposed to also referee the light heavyweight bout Magomed Ankalaev against Volkan Oezdemir - a 205-pound match that introduced the main card, broadcast on ESPN+ in the US.

A light heavyweight championship bout between the UFC champion Jan Blachowicz and challenger Glover Teixeira headlined the event.