There have been several controversial moments at UFC Abu Dhabi on Saturday night.
The most important event resulted in a razor-close split decision that some consider must have gone Robert Whittaker’s way.
Reinier de Ridder was declared the most important event winner but there was a moment much earlier on within the night that earned a powerful response from fans.
Referee Jason Herzog was criticized for not stopping the second fight of the night which took place between Mohammad Yahya and Steven Nguyen.
Nonetheless, while they weren’t needed, the scorecards provided one other talking point.
‘Big’ John McCarthy calls out UFC Abu Dhabi judges for not awarding Steven Nguyen a 10-7 round
Though Jason Herzog didn’t stop the fight after Steven Nguyen broke the UFC record for many knockdowns in a single fight, Mohammad Yahya was stopped by the doctor attributable to his gruesome injury.
The primary round was completely dominant for Nguyen, who seemingly couldn’t stop dropping his opponent each time he connected with a clean strike.
Nonetheless, all three judges only scored the fight 10-8 in his favor, with some suggesting that Nguyen had a transparent case for a 10-7.
Legendary referee ‘Big’ John McCarthy addressed this during a recent episode of the Weighing In podcast where he said that several officials who were in attendance for the event were messaging him to ask whether the round justified this rating.
McCarthy said that it was a transparent and obvious decision to make, but he believes that the judges were attempting to guard their very own careers by not producing a rare scorecard.
“I’m like, that’s because they’re afraid to. They’re afraid now to freaking do their job. You have a look at, if you’re that guy on the surface [and] you’re not within the [United] States and for those who take a have a look at the those that were judging that, lots of them are in Europe and so they need to work.
“So that they’re looking and so they’re taking the secure route of claiming, ‘You understand what, this can be a 10-8’, once they’re not giving the fighter, Steven Nguyen, what he deserves for what he did in that round.”
John McCarthy also felt just like the fight must have been stopped earlier
The scorecards didn’t find yourself impacting the fight, with Mohammad Yahya having little probability of winning before the competition was called off by the doctor.
‘Big’ John McCarthy said that while Yahya was clearly intelligently defending himself following among the knockdowns, that wasn’t the case for all of them.
He said that he believes Jason Herzog could have called it off sooner, especially considering the damage the fighter was taking in comparison with the stakes of the matchup.
“You’ll be able to’t let the those that are in those lower fights take an excessive amount of damage because once they’ve shown that, you understand what, they’re not gonna win this fight, and you possibly can see it… There’s no point in putting this kid on the market to receive more damage.
“It might have been stopped even sooner and possibly, I’m being honest, must have based on why am I going to permit this kid to get more damage when he’s not gonna win this fight.”