Then explain why Josh was sitting there after the fight looking confused. Even Joe & Goldie were like "WTF just happened" The fact I remember about 3 controversial tap stoppages in all the UFC I've seen (all of them) what happened last night definitely raises questions. It wasn't the worst stoppage I've seen, but it was a borderline bad call. A good ref stops after 3 straight taps, hell if the ref's Mazagatti, you gotta tap 5-6 times before he stops it. (Brock Vs. Mir 1) even if he tapped 2 times, which he didn't. Give him that 3rd tap, you never know what can happen. Most ref's go with the 3 tap rule because they don't wanna stop a bout when one person does something once that can appear to be a tap when it wasn't. I watched the ending 5 times, and all 5 times everyone looks confused. And the mayhem in the octagon afterwards says it definitely wasn't a clear tap.
You'd have to ask the ref what he was thinking after he stopped it, but he was confident he saw a tap and he stopped it. He had a d@mn good vantage point. I think what freaked everyone out is when Sonnen tried to pussy out and pretend he didn't tap when he said "WHAT??" (/edit: not to suggest sonnen fought like a 'pussy', lol)
That alone freaked everyone out into thinking there was an epic mistake/disaster of a call (I know I did briefly), altho the replays showed a clear tap soon afterwards.
I think Sonnen tried to bait Silva into releasing and hoping the ref wouldn't call one tap. That was his only chance...but the ref was too good and it failed.
I've seen a lot softer intentional taps than that, and even tho this was only one, its indisputable imo that the tap was intentional and sufficient to count as 1 tap.
Whether or not there should be a multiple tap rule is an entirely different conversation (not necessarily a bad one either), but that's not relevant right now imo in gauging whether or not the ref did the right thing.
Currently there isn't a multiple tap rule in order to protect the fighter, which could mean the difference between a stopped fight and no significant injuries or a stopped fight and torn ligaments etc. What mazagotti did was not only wrong, but was practically criminal. Lensar's knee could have been shredded from that @sshole.