As soon as the light heavyweight clash between Rodolfo
Bellato and Paul Craig
at UFC
Atlanta ended, the speculation began.
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The bout was halted when Craig landed an illegal upick on his
Brazilian foe at the 4:59 mark of Round 1. Bellato appeared to go
out before suddenly jolting back to consciousness and attempting to
grapple with referee Kevin
MacDonald. As a result, the bout was declared a no contest.
More than a few observers questioned the legitimacy of Bellato’s
reaction, especially since he appeared to be looking at the referee
in protest as he fell to the canvas. That skepticism included the
UFC Atlanta post-fight show team of Anthony
Smith, Stephen
Thompson and Dan Hellie. Smith was especially blunt when
calling out the Brazilian for his actions.
“It was a great fight up until the way that it ended all weird.
Paul Craig was really forcing the takedowns, he ends up shooting
the takedown, pulls guard, the round ends and he throws an upkick
while Bellato, he has a knee down. So that’s an illegal strike. I’m
going to be hard here. I’m going to be hard on Bellato,” Smith said
on the post-fight show.
“As the upkick happens, he looks to the referee to see if the
referee realized that was illegal. He looks right to him. You see
his eyes come to the referee to protest and then realizes maybe I
can get a free win. Lays there, pretends he’s unconscious, jolts
back awake allegedly. Referee comes over. That is a man who is
awake, pretends to grapple the referee as if he’s unconscious,
trying to get a cheap win. I’ve been doing this a long time and I
know what it looks like when somebody’s faking it.”
Smith was the recipient of a foul in his bid for light heavyweight
gold at UFC 235, when he lost a unanimous decision to Jon Jones. In
that bout, “Lionheart” absorbed an illegal knee from Jones in the
fourth stanza, and while two points were taken from the champ,
Smith elected to continue fighting.
As for Bellato vs. Craig, the fight was still very much up for
grabs as the opening round drew to a close. While Smith
acknowledged that Craig did land an illegal blow, he reiterated his
claim that Bellato exaggerated his reaction.
“He’s going to look to the referee, ‘Oh my god that’s illegal! Oh I
better pretend I’m unconscious. The jolt back awake. This is the
worst performance I’ve ever seen. The referee knows this is not
really happening. I feel really bad for Paul Craig,” Smith
said.
“We’re laughing about it and joking because it is so silly what
happened here with Rodolfo Bellato and Paul Craig but Paul Craig,
although he did break the rules. We have to address that. He did
break the rules. It wasn’t intentional. But that’s a fight that
seemingly could have continued. I’m not going to pretend I’m in his
head and can tell how bad it actually did hurt. He definitely was
not unconscious and hurt as he was pretending to be. That’s for
sure.”
Meanwhile, Thompson called Bellato’s reaction an “Oscar
performance,” and Hellie referred to it as “WWE-level stuff.”
Bellato and Craig were initially scheduled to meet at UFC Vegas 106
on May 17, but the Brazilian was forced to withdraw due to a case
of herpes. Bellato is now 1-1 with one no contest in the UFC, while
Craig has won just one of his last seven promotional outings.