Amir Albazi reflects on his split decision victory over Kai Kara-France At UFC Vegas 74.
UFC flyweight Amir Albazi has found himself in a good position in the division. Following his split decision victory over Kai Kara-France, Albazi is now sitting in the number three spot on the official rankings. Albazi should be celebrating his win at UFC Vegas 74 but is instead defending his performance. Because of how close the fight was and the fact that it went to a split decision some fans and fellow fighters are upset with the call by the judges.
Kara-France and his team have been very vocal about their outrage at the decision. Even Kara-France’s teammate, middleweight champion Israel Adesanya called out the judges for their poor scoring. Albazi believes the right call was made and blames the commentators for swaying the fans watching at home.
Amir Albazi feels the commentators swayed the fan’s perception of his fight at UFC Vegas 74
Albazi was looking to burst into the top five of the flyweight rankings with a win over Kara-France. He was able to do just that but is now left defending his performance. He feels as if he won three out of the five rounds and had no doubt that he won the fight on Saturday night. He spoke to ESPN about this.
“I don’t think it was a controversial decision,” he said. “I think was a close fight for sure but it’s like you said it’s the highest level we are at right now. So of course gonna be close fights and decisions and this kind of stuff. So I expect that on the way too… I still think I won 1,2,3, and I came into the fourth feeling like I had done enough. I took three in the bag, you know, but yeah. So we came to the judges and that’s why I felt like the judges were with me on that one.”
Upon watching the fight back, Albazi was confused about the cage side commentary he heard throughout his fight. He thinks Brendan Fitzgerald, Laura Sanko, and Michael Bisping were calling the fight most favorably for Kara-France and he blames this for some of the backlash received.
“A lot of people also looking at the commentary where the commentary said like, that’s another point I didn’t like,” he said. “And like not give me credit for what I was doing and giving Kai too much credit for stuff that I don’t believe. They said that he defended my takedown. But let’s be real, like the moment I tried to take you down and got you down. I didn’t want to take you down. I wanted to punch you in the face. That’s actually what happened.”
Despite the fallout from the win, Albazi now finds himself in a great position within the division. He spoke about wanting the next title shot and has heard a favorable response from Dana White on that front. Since coming to the UFC back in 2020, Albazi has won five in a row.
