Petr Yan and Jose Aldo gave the fans a great fight at UFC 251. Jose Aldo seemed to have regained some of his youth in the first round, but the highly skilled Yan broke the former featherweight champion and became the new UFC bantamweight champion. Yan stopped Aldo in the last round with a flurry of strikes on the ground, but many viewers including Dana White felt like the fight should have been stopped sooner.
Jose Aldo was turtled up to prevent Yan from passing his guard, but the Brazilian was eating countless unanswered strikes from Yan. The Russian maintained top position and delivered strikes after strikes while referee Leon Roberts was urging Aldo to fight back. Roberts allowed the beating to continue until 3:24 and finally stopped the fight.
During his post-fight interview, Dana White slammed the “horrible” refereeing by Leon Roberts during that fight.
“Horrible, horrible stoppage by the referee. It should’ve been stopped way sooner, you know. It looks like we have to tighten up our refs and judges here in ‘Fight Island.’”
The UFC boss also referred to his frustration over the controversial judges’ decision of the fight between Volkanovski and Holloway. He then praised Aldo’s performance and his stint at bantamweight so far against Marlon Moraes and Petr Yan.
“I thought Aldo looked great for people that were criticizing him saying he doesn’t deserve another title shot. He fought the next guy lined up for a title shot and he looked damn good doing it, he can do whatever he wants.”
