MMAOddsBreaker’s Frank Trigg speaks with legendary mixed martial arts referee ‘Big’ John McCarthy about Beneil Dariush’s controversial split decision victory over Michael Johnson at UFC Fight Night 73 this past weekend (August 8, 2015) at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee.
The fans and media scored the bout 29-28 for Johnson by a wide margin, but Dariush was awarded the victory. McCarthy, who also has experience judging fights on top of his refereeing, explained how things could have gone awry:
“I think in this fight, we have two guys who looked at Dariush and thought that in the second round he was landing, in their opinion, the better strikes. Although Johnson, there’s no doubt throughout the entire three rounds, Johnson controls the position of the fight and he controls the aggression of the fight, but those are the two things you’re putting down here [points lower]. You’re giving credit off of striking and grappling [points higher]. That’s your two things. The grappling portion, if you’re gonna look at it and say it, Johnson wins the grappling but it took so little place in the actual fight that you’re not gonna give credit to it. What your’e gonna give credit to is all that striking and there’s times when there’s angles and things when you’re a judge where it looks like a shot landed but if you’re sitting at a different angle, it actually went past him and didn’t hit him hard and you’re not gonna give credit to it. And that’s what happens with these types of scores.”