Stevie Ray believes viewers were swayed by biased commentary at UFC Moncton.
Stevie Ray won a controversial decision over Jessin Ayari at UFC Monton, but the Scottish athlete believes it was a clear-cut win for him.
Ray, 29, touched on the outcome of the fight when speaking with Bloody Elbow ahead of his next bout at UFC Stockholm. Four media members scored the UFC Moncton fight 30-27 in favor of Ayari, according to MMA Decisions. An additional seven scored it 29-28 for Ayari. In fact, only one media member scored the fight 29-28 for Ray.
“I’ve watched it back. To be honest, maybe I’m being biased… I feel the commentary was very biased. I think it was Dan Hardy,” he continued. “They were being quite biased. They were speaking a lot about [Ayari.]”
“When I go and watch the fight back, I give myself all three rounds. Maybe I give him one round, but I definitely I won two rounds out of the three,” Ray argued. “He was controlling the center and he was coming forward, but he wasn’t actually throwing shots. He was countering.”
Ray did give Hardy some credit.
“It was true a lot of the stuff they said as well,” he conceded. “One thing that Dan Hardy mentioned is I sometimes get in a bad habit of throwing single shots. I’ve got the capability of finishing the fights but I’m coasting through the rounds. I’ve took all that on board and it’s helped me. He is right about some of that.”
Ray fights Leonardo Santos at UFC Stockholm on Saturday, June 1. The event is headlined by a light-heavyweight clash between Alexander Gustafsson and Anthony Smith.