Over the weekend, Max Holloway dropped a close and controversial decision in a rematch with Alexander Volkanovski. However Chael Sonnen does not agree with how the judges saw it.
UFC 251 saw a vacant title find a home, and a BMF champ try to get the biggest win of his career. However sandwiched between those two title fights was a rematch between Max Holloway and the man who took his title, Alexander Volkanovski. The two had an epic contest, with the champ getting his first title defense.
Chael Sonnen Disagrees With The Decision
A large portion of the MMA community felt that Holloway should have gotten the better end of that split decision. Among those is Chael Sonnen, who took to his YouTube channel to say that he felt like Max did enough to win. That being said, he does not feel like it was a robbery, like some have suggested.
“I saw something different,” Chael said. “I saw something different the first time, I thought that Max won and I definitely saw something different (Saturday night). Look, I had it three rounds to two, Max. Now the first two rounds are without question. Max had a knockdown in each round, he gets to win those rounds. To tell me that Max didn’t win another round, that’s just a bit of a surprise for me.
Now this was a great fight and this was not a robbery, and that is not at all my message,” Sonnen went on. “The reason that it’s very important that this fight was done correctly…By the way, I’m not saying it wasn’t, I’m saying I saw something different. We had no robbery here, not the message at all. But understand it from this perspective, okay. If I’m right, then you have the best fighter in the world who does not have the world championship. But also if I’m right, the best fighter in the world who doesn’t have the championship has no path back to an opportunity to have the championship unless Volkanovski gets beaten.”
Chael Sonnen certainly has a point that this was not a robbery. Agree with the decision or not, by definition a close fight can not be a robbery. That being said, it sucks pretty bad for Holloway who, as Chael noted, will struggle getting a third shot at the man who took his belt.
How did you score Alexander Volkanovski vs Max Holloway 2?
