Here’s what you may have missed?
Isaac Dulgarian may have coughed up his undefeated record last night (Sat., March 16, 2024) during UFC Vegas 88, but he didn’t do so without controversy.
In fact, Dulgarian dominated Christian Rodriguez for at least five minutes. That much is undisputed. All three judges agreed, awarding Dulgarian a 10-8 on the first round scorecards. Dulgarian threw “CeeRod” all over the cage, spent a lot of time in mount (and back mount), and really appeared to be breaking down Rodriguez. He landed a healthy amount of strikes, threatened submissions, and according to UFC Stats — the source for all the numbers I’ll be using in this post — spent but 12 seconds of the round in control positions.
Let’s fast-forward to the third frame for a moment, in which the script was entirely flipped. Dulgarian was tired, and Rodriguez was kicking his butt all around the cage. Rodriguez was fatigued as well, which is the reason no finish materialized, but it was still dominant work. Rodriguez landed some hard shots on the feet, reversed takedowns, and nearly finished the fight from flattened-out back mount on a couple of occasions.
All told, 74 Rodriguez strikes landed compared to five from Dulgarian, as well as 3:14 of control. That also sounds like a 10-8, and again, all three judges agreed. That’s a lot of agreement and clear-cut scoring for a bizarre scorecard, but all the strangeness is packed into the middle frame, that pesky second round.
Dulgarian vs. Rodriguez scorecard pic.twitter.com/u4HyCUEF3M
— MMA Mania (@mmamania) March 17, 2024
The judges were split on the second. Two awarded Rodriguez the 10-9 nod, while judge Anthony Maness dissented and gave the round to Dulgarian. The correct party is dependent upon how strictly you follow the judging criteria, which remains an eternally gray area open for interpretation.
According to the current scoring criteria, damage is prioritized over control, and striking is prioritized over grappling. For wrestling and jiu-jitsu to score, it has to result in meaningful offense. From this point of view, and taken entirely black-and-white, Rodriguez is the winner, because he landed three more strikes than his opponent (18 vs. 15 total, 12 vs. 8 significant).
And, in fairness, his landed shots were also the harder ones, which does matter.
The problem is that Dulgarian landed four takedowns and controlled four entire minutes of the fight. That makes the situation at least a little gray, right? I’ve been punched and taken down in professional fights, and I have to say, the average takedown hurts at least as badly as an average punch.
It’s kind of an absurdly strict following of the rules. I am inclined to argue too strict. While I’m in favor of the damage preference overall, we cannot pretend that Rodriguez wasn’t manhandled for long portions of the round, and he didn’t win the striking differential by all that much. In lots of other fights, a four strike difference is considered VIRTUALLY IDENTICAL, forcing the judges to weigh in the other facts like grappling, Octagon control and aggression.
Rodriguez/Dulgarian was the 5th split decision in UFC history with 28-27, 27-28, 28-27 scorecards, but the first without a point deduction.
— MMADecisions.com (@MMADecisions) March 17, 2024
Truthfully, we don’t know exactly how Rodriguez’s lands compare to Dulgarian’s. Measuring a strike’s significance is not an exact science. Innocent looking jabs can hurt. A chipping ground strike from Demian Maia was probably written down as a total strike (not significant), yet it stunned the famously durable Carlos Condit.
Is one hard low kick worth more than one hard jab? Who f—king knows!
It’s a judgement call, and in this case, the judges decided that the guy who won four minutes out of five in a round lost the round. Barring exceptional circumstances, that seems silly, and four strikes do not make for particularly exceptional circumstance.
My personal bottom line is this: I don’t think Rodriguez deserved the decision according to the current judging criteria. Admittedly, I also don’t have a problem with him getting his hand raised, because Dulgarian deserved to lose a point for fingering Rodriguez’s gloves in the third round, which may have presented a technical knockout stoppage.
It was a close fight, so in many ways, a close decision is an appropriate result one way or the other. Still, it’s one of the most bizarre scorecards in recent memory, the most standout moment in a standard Apex event.
It was allegedly a little greasy, too.
For complete UFC Vegas 88: “Tuivsasa vs. Tybura” results and play-by-play, click HERE.