User blog:Zolnir/Flaw in Tournament Setup

I just realized something reading through some thrashy Chinese novels. Usually in a combat tournament, there would be a referee standing by to prevent rule breaking, intentional/unintentional injuries, so on and so on. In Chinese web novels, a fighter of a much higher power than the fighters would usually be the referee to guarantee that neither person is killed/heavily injured during the fight (subject to the rules of the tournament of course).

In fact this is a pretty common sight even in real life when involving physical sports such as soccer, wrestling, UFC, boxing etc

In RWBY the safety of the Huntsmen (and people in general) is greatly emphasized, because negative emotions born from traumatic injuries etc will attract the Grimm. So all things considered I find it really illogical that there are no referees at all present at the battleground and overseeing the tournament. If say, Professor Oobleck had been there in person, practically all of the intentional accidents caused by Cinder could've been prevented or greatly hindered (super speed to save everyone from everything!). He could've stopped Yang in time from hitting Mercury, or saved Penny from getting skewered like a pig. At the very least it would not have been so easy for Emerald to use her Semblance on anyone without revealing it to the public.