At its essence, the announcement of a decision in an MMA fight is supposed to answer a question. There was a fight Saturday at UFC 334 where it only created more questions.
A bizarre contest resulted in a bizarre decision that was revealed in bizarre fashion when a main-card fight between Uro Medic and Kevin Holland was announced by longtime UFC voice Bruce Buffer as a majority draw, with scores of 30-27, 29-28, 28-28.
The broadcasting desk of Jon Anik, Daniel Cormier and Joe Rogan were immediately confused after the announcement, as two of the announced scores were decisive. The desk understandably assumed the decisive scores would have been in favor of Holland, which would have been a majority decision for Holland, not a draw.
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Had Medic won on one judge’s card and Holland on the other, it would have been a split draw, not a majority draw. The numbers and decision simply didn’t add up.
“It just doesn’t make sense,” Rogan said.
“A draw does not make sense … How do we get to a draw here? [Holland] so clearly won that fight,” Cormier said.
It was only later established that Buffer had provided the wrong scores, as the fight was really recorded as 29-27, 28-28, 28-28. The 29-27 card was in favor of Medic.
The initial confusion clouded an outrageous decision by the judges. Medic was overall outmatched by the veteran Holland and also received a point deduction for low blows in the second round.
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Going off the official stats, Holland landed more total strikes, more significant strikes, had more ground control time and landed two takedowns to Medic’s zero. He nearly had the fight won in the first round with a D’Arce choke and, speaking subjectively, controlled nearly the entire fight.
And yet, all three judges gave the fight to Medic before factoring in the deducted point. Mike Bell and Chris Lee both gave the first round to Holland and the other two to Medic, while David Bruce somehow gave all three to Medic who, again, spent the last minute of the first round on the verge of getting choked to unconsciousness.
The result was the first time Medic (14-3-1) had a fight go the scorecards, and they were clearly friendly to him. What happened was obviously preferable to a loss, but it also leaves Holland (29-15-1, 1 NC) with only one win in his past four fights.
Check out complete UFC 334 results and highlights from Uncrowned’s fight night event hub.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
