Opinion: A Controversy or a Robbery?

Editor’s note: The views and opinions expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sherdog.com, its affiliates and sponsors or its parent company, Evolve Media.

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It would be wrong of me to label UFC Vegas 103 a letdown. While I could say it didn’t quite live up to the modest expectations set for it, I believe that would be a disservice to the two bouts that salvaged an event from being otherwise unwatchable. I want to focus on those two contests.

Hyder Amil defeated William Gomis in a razor-thin split decision, and Nasrat Haqparast took a contentious split decision from Esteban Ribovics. Though there are similarities in the types of decisions, I also believe it’s great to compare the controversies that are generated from debated scorecards. Buckle in, as there are going to be quite a few numbers thrown around.

Amil and Gomis, in particular, feels like a difficult encounter to figure out, and it all hinges on a single round. There doesn’t appear to be any debate that Gomis won the first round and Amil secured the third. Round 2 is up for debate. According to MMADecisions.com, press scores were in favor of Amil by a count of 9-4. Full disclosure: I was in the minority. Perhaps some would say that’s indicative of the right fighter winning, but fan scores were more in line with the type of fight I saw. The vote the last time I checked was 51% to 47% in favor of Amil—far closer than the media scores.

However, troll through the social media of some media members who scored the contest and you’ll see they recognize it was a very close round. Sean Sheehan, Ryan Frederick and the X feed for Combat Press all acknowledged the closeness of the contest. A look at the numbers provided by UFCStats.com doesn’t clear things up much, either. The second round saw Gomis outland Amil 48-45 in significant strikes, but we all know not all significant strikes are created equal. Amil had a bit more control time, but shouldn’t damage be the first deciding factor? Perhaps it served as a tiebreaker for some. Regardless, it was impossible to say who definitively won. It’s completely subjective, and if you’re like me, you’re fine with others scoring it either way.

I feel differently about Haqparast-Ribovics. I strongly disagreed with Haqparast being awarded the decision, but I also wouldn’t go so far as to call it a robbery. That’s because I can see the fight being scored for Haqparast if I look at it from a particular angle. I thought the first round was clearly in favor of Haqparast and the third round assuredly scored for Ribovics, with the second being the swing round.

The numbers don’t really help my case that much. In fact, they seem to hurt my opinion of the second being the swing round more than anything. It had the largest striking discrepancy, with Ribovics outlanding Haqparast 62-49. Yet all three of the official judges scored that round for Haqparast. However, I did get a reprieve on my thoughts from the fan scoring on MMADecisions. At last count, the first round was at 87% in favor of Haqparast, with the third round in favor of Ribovics at 97% and the swing round second at 67% for Ribovics. That leaves the fan scores officially at 134 in favor of Ribovics and 49 in favor of Haqparast—a more lopsided number than there was for the Amil-Gomes fight. As for the media scores, nine media members scored it in favor of Ribovics, while two scored it in favor of Haqparast.

Besides the fact that I can see where someone gave the fight to Haqparast—he did jump out to a lead in the second round before Ribovics swung the momentum in his favor—the other reason I can’t label it a robbery is because of the amount of people who believe he won. Even if the majority believed Ribovics deserved to have his hand raised, there isn’t an insignificant number of viewers who believe Haqparast won. Granted, I do believe there are assuredly homers in those who favor one or the other, not to mention some who don’t know specifically how to score a fight. However, I believe there are enough fans in those numbers that know what to look for who scored the fight contrary to the way I did.

Does that mean there’s no such thing as a robbery? Well, while they are rare, there are some cases that are just outright robberies. The most recent case I can recall happens to involve a fighter competing at UFC 313 this Saturday in Las Vegas. Carlos Leal Miranda lost a unanimous decision to Rinat Fakhretdinov at UFC 308, but anyone who watched it knows the truth. All 16 media members scoring the contest, myself included, thought Miranda clearly won, not to mention 88% of the fans. The numbers don’t fully back up that narrative—Fakhretdinov landed more significant strikes—but that has been consistent with each of these examples. What is known is that Miranda landed the cleaner and more impactful strikes. Another excellent example of a robbery comes from 2014, when Diego Sanchez defeated Ross Pearson. It was a fight in New Mexico, Sanchez’s home state, and all 14 media members scored in favor of Pearson, not to mention 96% of the fans.

Obviously, there are more examples of blatant robberies in MMA history, but there usually tends to be a motivation, intentional or not, behind the robbery. Home cooking tends to be the most common denominator. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen without it, but those cases are exceptionally rare. The bottom line? A robbery involves a fight where an overwhelming proportion of the audience can’t see how a winner got his hand raised. With that said, no matter how much I or anyone else talks about robberies being rare, the term is still going to be thrown around far more than it should.