The UFC
on ESPN 43 main event was largely devoid of drama — at least
until the final scorecards were announced.
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Cory
Sandhagen authored one of the most complete performances of his
career to date, using movement, clever striking and timely
takedowns to confound Marlon Vera
for the better part of 25 minutes at the AT&T Center in San
Antonio on Saturday night. While the vast majority of observers
thought the Elevation Fight Team export won four or five rounds,
cageside judge Joel Ojeda
submitted a dissenting 48-47 tally in favor of Vera. That led to a
little bit more tension than expected during the final verdict.
“I think I do a pretty good job of sometimes keeping real good
track of the volume, the damage, and the takedowns — and I thought
that I was doing that almost the entire fight,” Sandhagen said
during Saturday’s post-fight press conference.
“I thought that I was winning most of those rounds. Maybe the
third, I was like, ‘Eh, you know, that was maybe a little bit
close,’ but I thought that I was bagging the other ones. Definitely
knew that I had the first two. So yeah, [the split decision was]
confusing, but that’s the sport of MMA. Until the rules get fixed,
it’s just going to keep happening. If they would’ve scored one of
those first two [rounds] for him, that would’ve been a real
riot.”
UFC president Dana White had an even stronger reaction to the split
decision.
“I was literally coming out of the bathroom and I was like, ‘What
the f—k?’” White said. “Were you surprised? It could have been 5-0,
it could have been [4-1], but split? Wow, that’s pretty scary.”
Ultimately, Sandhagen got the victory that he deserved. In doing
so, he neutralized the dangerous power of Vera, an opponent who
entered the bout on a four-fight winning streak. Sandhagen admitted
that he had a specific game plan to limit what Vera does best.
“I think I did exactly what I have to do. When you fight these top
guys, especially when they’re knockout artists kind of like Marlon
is, you just have to fight them in a certain way,” he said. “Marlon
doesn’t close distance very well, so I knew as long as I wasn’t
closing the distance for him, he was going to have a really hard
time hitting me. And I think that I fought almost a perfect fight
for fighting that type of opponent.”
Sandhagen, who previously came up short in a bid for interim
bantamweight gold against Petr Yan at
UFC 267, remains firmly entrenched among the top contenders in the
division. Questionable split decision aside, that is
undeniable.
“Yeah, we there’s no doubt about it,” White said. “He looked really
good tonight and, obviously, he beat the No. 3 guy in the world.
That wasn’t a split decision. Whoever scored that fight a split
decision should be — I don’t even know, I’m not even going to go
there. He absolutely dominated tonight and put himself in a really
good position.”