Israel Adesanya appeared to disagree with the judges following Saturday night’s thrilling UFC 284 main event.
Adesanya’s City Kickboxing teammate Alexander Volkanovski attempted to solve the puzzle that is Islam Makhachev in a bid to become a two-division UFC champion. After an exciting 25 minutes of action, Makhachev was awarded the victory via unanimous decision. The announcement clearly frustrated Adesanya who was sitting cageside at the event and documented his experience on YouTube as the results were revealed by Octagon announcer Bruce Buffer.
Adesanya Weighs In on Makhachev’s Victory Over Volkanovski at UFC 284
Israel Adesanya was far from the only person frustrated with the scorecards as combat sports fans flooded social media to debate the decision, many of them believing the Australian native did more than enough to dethrone the Dagestani destroyer. Popular MMA scoring app Verdict revealed that fans around the world had scored the bout in favor of Volkanovski and it was understandable to see why when looking at the total stats released by UFCStats.com.
Alex Volkanovski defeated Islam Makhachev on the Verdict Scorecard.#UFC284 pic.twitter.com/ZGGF1dkNMO
— Verdict (@VerdictMMA) February 12, 2023
‘The Great’ landed 164 total strikes in the bout compared to 95 strikes for Makhachev. The deciding factor ultimately came down to control time with Makhachev scoring four takedowns and maintaining control for 7:37 of the 25-minute duration. Makhachev unanimously took the first round amongst fans and judges with an advantage in both striking and grappling, but Volkanovski held a significant strike advantage in the fourth and fifth rounds per the stats. Despite that, ‘The Great’ lost the fourth round on all three scorecards.
The second and third rounds were far more competitive with both fighters going toe-to-toe in the striking. Judges ultimately split those two rounds between the two fighters with the exception of Derek Clearly who delivered a much-maligned 49-46 scorecard in favor of Makhachev.
The scoring of Makhachev vs. Volkanovski is sure to be debated for years to come. How did you see the fight playing out? Let us know in the comments section below.
#UFC284 Official Scorecards: Islam Makhachev (@MAKHACHEVMMA) vs Alexander Volkanovski
See every judges' scorecard from #UFC284 here ➡️: https://t.co/enKup6T3NK pic.twitter.com/5DJgiyxJdU
— UFC News (@UFCNews) February 12, 2023
