UFC Fight Night 42: Sanchez vs. Pearson Worst Decision Since Bisping vs. Hamill

By Rich Davie
@RichDavie
June 8, 2014

After last night's Sanchez vs. Pearson bout at the UFC Fight Night 42: Henderson vs. Khabilov event, we can all hear DFW's voice echoing those now infamous words in our heads...

Don't let it go to the judges !

Yes, it was another abysmal decision by the appointed MMA judges on the UFC Fight Night 42 card... giving Diego Sanchez a more than well undeserved split decision victory over Ross Pearson.

I love Diego Sanchez, and picked him to win this match-up, but this was the worst decision by MMA judges since the ridiculous Bisping vs. Hamill decision (which happens to be the reason I started posting and blogging on MMA sites), back at the UFC 75 - Champion vs. Champion event on September 08, 2007.

What was that one judge on ?

That judge Jeff Collins scoring it 30-27 Sanchez is either blind, out of his mind, or must have been on some serious drugs to come up with a fantasy score like that !

We also have to mention the other judge, Chris Tellez who scored the fight 29-28 Sanchez, giving Diego rounds one and three !

Were these fellas watching the Sanchez vs. Pearson bout from another dimension and reality... much like the Twilight Zone, or a trip to the home of the Cheshire Cat in Wonderland !

The only 3 individuals that I'm aware of that think Sanchez won that fight are: Jeff Collins, Chris Tellez, and of course Diego Sanchez.

I'm sure there are hardcore Diego Sanchez fans who think Diego legitimately won that decision, but the majority of us can put our fandom and favoritism of Diego Sanchez aside and admit that Ross Pearson should have walked out of the Octagon on Saturday Night not only having had his hand raised the winner, but he should have received the "Performance" or Fight of the Night" bonus as well.

Maybe Marcos Rosales (who scored the fight 30-27 Pearson) should give those fellas Jeff Collins and Chris Tellez a lesson on how MMA judging and scoring works... you know, the basic "MMA judging and scoring 101" type stuff that most MMA fans are capable of.

There's really no possible way that the fight could be scored in favor of Diego Sanchez... unless of course we're in the Twilight Zone where no punches or strikes were thrown, and we're scoring the fight purely on aggression and Octagon control... but I don't believe that Twilight Zone metric is even enough to score the win for Sanchez.

Here's the FightMetric widget for the Sanchez vs. Pearson fight :

http://blog.fightmetric.com/2014/06/sanchez-vs-pearson-official-ufc.html

I scored the fight the same as the only capable and competent judge Marcos Rosales did... 30-27 Ross Pearson.

I've mentioned this numerous times on shows that we've done in the past... and when the topic of ridiculous and incompetent judging arises, my solution to the problem is plain and simple logic :

There needs to be schools / educational programs for all individuals interested in becoming Judges or Refs in MMA where they're taught and educated in a universal manner that results in a final exam certifying their competency in either Judging or reffing... or both.

What do you all think about the fight, the way it was scored, and what do you think the resolution to the problem is with not only judges scoring MMA fights dreadfully, but with the dramatic inconsistencies between how judges score MMA fights ?

Here's the judges' scorecard for this bout :

Horrible decision. I think even Diego was surprised.

DFW announced that Ross Pearson will receive his $30,000 win bonus, and the UFC will treat Pearson's loss to Diego Sanchez as a win in regard to future matchmaking purposes.

Good. Seen someone who thought Diego actually won lol. No clue what he was watching.

Yeah... I've seen a couple of individuals try to rationalize why Sanchez won.

I think some people do things like that just to show they're more intelligent than everybody else... which in this case is a clear-cut backfire.

 

Bumping up this thread to go along with Antonio's threads from the "MMA Chat Articles" forum.