Khaos Williams is not impressed with the judges after losing his first fight in the UFC
At UFC Vegas 17 Khaos Williams had his storming start to his Octagon career blunted by Michel Pereira. The Detroiter came up short versus the Brazilian and landed on the wrong side of a unanimous decision.
That loss was Williams first with the promotion, having announced himself on the scene with a bang in the form of two stunning 30 second KOs. The first of those was against alex Morono at UFC 247 last February. The second, and far more brutal of the two, was against Abdul Razak Alhassan in November.
Many expected fireworks between Williams and Pereira, whose reputation for cartwheels and backflips precedes him. However, against Williams Pereira fought more conservatively. That turned out to be a great decision. At least it did in the eye of the judges.
When speaking to Mike Heck over at MMA Fighting Williams spoke about those judges and why he felt they got the decision wrong on fight night.
“The main reason I felt I won is because I held the middle of the cage. I was bringing the fight to him, and it’s not as easy as it looks being in there,” said Williams. “When you have somebody dancing around and staying on the outside, it’s a little harder to dial in and really get off when somebody’s running away from you, when they’re not bringing the fight to you. Now, I became the aggressor, but it was more me counter-punching because I didn’t want to look sloppy when he danced around the cage.”
Williams conceded that he got caught with a good punch in the second round and that Pereira likely won the third with a late takedown.
“The third round is the only one I might have given him because he took me down with like 22 seconds left and didn’t do nothing with it. I don’t know how you can win a fight, and respect to him, but I don’t feel like he won that fight. I don’t even think he feels he won that fight. You could tell by his reaction. He didn’t even think he won that fight, man.”
“You can be the aggressor and you can win the fight for 4:30 of the round, but to the judges, they’re just looking at the last 30 seconds,” continued Williams. “I look at it like this; everybody is entitled to their opinions. If you ask 100 people, 70 percent of the people would say I won. The other 20, 30 percent are on his side because they’re a fan. If you’ve been in there and you’re a fighter, you know I won that fight. You can’t win a fight like that. He did more dancing than damage.”
Despite not getting the win to close out the year Williams sounded confident that the loss to Pereira was just a little bump on the road.
“It’s a minor setback for a major comeback. I stay encouraged, not discouraged. I’m a winner and I hate the feeling of losing. I’m a man, but I hate the losing feeling more than I love the winning feeling. It makes me even hungrier. It’s not that I lost the fight in general, because I really didn’t lose. I’m still confident. I still believe in myself and this God-given talent. I look at it as I lost a chapter in my legacy, in my book.”