It appeared as if Alex “Bruce Leeroy” Caceres was on his way to a decisive victory over his UFC 143 opponent Edwin Figueroa, but after two low blows, referee Herb Dean opted to do something that is practically unprecedented in MMA when he took, not one, but two points from Caceres.
In his post-fight interview, Caceres voiced his frustration with the outcome of the fight.
“He didn’t really hit me and I felt like I dominated the fight on the ground as well as in the stand-up,” Caceres told MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani. “I took his back almost every frickin’ round.”
Caceres did suffer a near-knockout early in the first round when Figueroa caught him with a surprise head-kick to the face, but the 23-year-old survived and was able to essentially dominate the rest of the bout.
Unfortunately for him, Caceres would have needed to win every round on each judge’s scorecard to secure a unanimous decision victory, and even then it would’ve been only a 28-27 victory. Mathematically, in a three-round fight, a two-point deduction is almost impossible to recover from.
“I never heard of a two-point deduction,” Caceres said. “And I mean, come on, we’re wearing cups.”
In the end, it was referee Herb Dean’s decision to take two points, and that was the difference in this bout.
Bruce Leeroy also noted that he will be attempting to appeal Dean’s decision to take two points away by going to the Nevada State Athletic Commission and pleading his case.
“It is my record,” he said. “I came out and I did what I was supposed to do. I dominated the fight, I beat the guy, and just to lose because of a two-point deduction which I’ve never heard of before, it does kill me a little bit.”
These types of decisions are not often overturned, but it’s also not often that a fighter has two points taken away for something in a fight that was not obviously intentional. It will be interesting to see what the outcome is from this controversial moment at UFC 143.
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