Isaac Dulgarian accuses Christian Rodriguez
of cheating pic.twitter.com/2MezwGR9AZ— MMA Mania (@mmamania)
March 17, 2024
Isaac
Dulgarian has hurled some serious accusations at
UFC Fight Night 239 opponent Christian
Rodriguez after their featherweight bout on Saturday.
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Dulgarian came out with guns blazing, ragdolling Rodriguez to win a
10-8 first round on all of the judges’ scorecards. While “The
MidWest Choppa” continued his dominant grappling in the second
frame, mounting over four minutes of control time, two of the
judges bizarrely gave the round to Rodriguez.
Dulgarian was visibly exhausted in the final round, which Rodriguez
went on to win 10-8 across all scorecards, securing a
split-decision victory. Dulgarian feels he was unfairly dealt the
first pro loss of his career.
“Hey guys, I appreciate the support man. I don’t really know what
happened in this fight,” Dulgarian said in a video on his Instagram
Stories. “I don’t feel like I lost this fight. And as you can tell,
I’m not super banged up. Round 1, I scored a 10-8 across the
scorecards. Round 2, I had about [four] minutes and 10 seconds of
control time, really only ate one significant strike and somehow
two of these judges gave him Round 2. And Round 3 obviously, I lost
that round, wasn’t very optically pleasing. But it is what it
is.”
Dulgarian also claims that he spent immense energy to control
Rodriguez, who he claims was unnaturally slippery early in the
fight.
“One thing I did notice though, I had to use a lot of strength and
energy to keep this guy down,” Dulgarian wrote. “About three
minutes into Round 1, I’m completely dry and this guy is shining.
You know, I’ve grappled thousands of bodies and I know when people
are cheating. This guy was lubed up, he had lotion on or something.
And it is what it is man, I can’t really do anything about it.”