Daniel Cormier, Jon Anik, and Paul Felder might be beloved commentators but their ‘biased’ words were picked apart by Rinat Fakhretdinov following a controversial victory.
The Russian welterweight was awarded a decision win against Carlos Leal, which DC but the UFC commentary team felt was due to the judges perhaps watching a different fight than the rest of the world.
When Fakhretdinov was asked about the commentators questioning the manner of his victory during the post-fight presser, he took offense to the insinuation that the third round had not been scored fairly and asserted:
“They’re really bad commentators. The first one was pretty close, you know, it could’ve gone either way, you know but I didn’t have any doubt in the second or third one.”
The fight was judged with scorecards of 29-28, 30-27, and 29-28 with middle eastern judge, Haji Mohammad Ali drawing the short stick for it. This, of course, raises further questions about the standards MMA judges are held to.
It also doesn’t help the UFC officials that the media scorecards for the fight were also unanimous, but, in stark contrast to the judges’ scorecard, they had Leal taking the win.
The controversy will undoubtedly overshadow it, for one of the opening acts of the night, this was more than just a warm-up.
What a brawl!
Carlos Leal took this fight on short notice and flew to Abu Dhabi to make his UFC debut. He might have been nervous but you wouldn’t know it. Neither did Fakhretdinov. ‘The Lion’ swung for the fences from the moment the timer was clicked on and didn’t stop till he was made to.
Fakhretdinov started off the eventual fight by securing a takedown in the very first round. But the ‘The Lion’ was never in danger.
As cheesy as this sounds, the Russian fighter would soon find out that the Brazilian was the danger.
Leal got right back up and took the fight to him and swung till he couldn’t anymore. This was actually the case for the Russian as well but Leal almost connected at will.
It would not be amiss to claim that he won at least two of the three rounds if not all three!
Of course, none of it matters now.
It will be interesting to see what the UFC president Dana White has to say about this in the post-fight presser and if at all, it is something concrete that will aid in reducing such perceived robberies.
