There were several controversial moments at UFC Abu Dhabi on Saturday night.
The main event ended in a razor-close split decision that some believe should have gone Robert Whittaker’s way.
Reinier de Ridder was declared the main event winner but there was a moment much earlier on in the night that earned a strong reaction 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.
However, while they weren’t needed, the scorecards provided another 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 most knockdowns in one fight, Mohammad Yahya was stopped by the doctor due to his gruesome injury.
The first round was completely dominant for Nguyen, who seemingly couldn’t stop dropping his opponent every time he connected with a clean strike.
However, all three judges only scored the fight 10-8 in his favor, with some suggesting that Nguyen had a clear 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 score.
McCarthy said that it was a clear and obvious decision to make, but he believes that the judges were attempting to protect their 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 look at, when you’re that guy on the outside [and] you’re not in the [United] States and if you take a look at the people that were judging that, a lot of them are in Europe and they want to work.
“So they’re looking and they’re taking the safe route of saying, ‘You know what, this is a 10-8’, when they’re not giving the fighter, Steven Nguyen, what he deserves for what he did in that round.”
John McCarthy also felt like the fight should have been stopped earlier
The scorecards didn’t end up impacting the fight, with Mohammad Yahya having little chance of winning before the contest was called off by the doctor.
‘Big’ John McCarthy said that while Yahya was clearly intelligently defending himself following some of 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 compared to the stakes of the matchup.
“You can’t let the people that are in those lower fights take too much damage because when they’ve shown that, you know what, they’re not gonna win this fight, and you can see it… There’s no point in putting this kid out there to receive more damage.
“It could have been stopped even sooner and probably, I’m being honest, should have based on why am I going to allow this kid to get more damage when he’s not gonna win this fight.”
