The Octagon’s return to Miami has featured some questionable scorecards early on in the night.
Fortunately, this didn’t impact the first two fights inside the Kaseya Center at UFC 314 which got off to a strong start with back-to-back finishes.
Nora Cornolle was criticized by fans for her reaction after getting the stoppage but the bantamweight’s submission win over Hailey Cowan was impressive nonetheless.
The second matchup on the card set a standard for the rest of the night with Marco Tulio producing a devastating knockout against Tresean Gore following a wild opening round.
Flyweights followed the two dangerous middleweights with the judges being called into action after going all three rounds for the first time on April 12.
Photo by Megan Briggs/Getty Images
In the third fight of the night, Sumudaerji recorded his first win inside the Octagon in four years to bounce back from a three-fight losing streak.
The Team Alpha Male fighter took on Mitch Raposo who was in search of his first UFC win after suffering a split decision loss to Andre Lima on his debut last June.
Raposo’s game plan relied heavily on his wrestling ability with the 26-year-old securing 6 takedowns with 19 attempts across the 15-minute duration.
Sumudaerji’s success came in the striking exchanges whilst the fight stayed standing as he capitalized on the moments where he was able to implement his strategy but the same couldn’t be said for his opponent.
Despite producing over four minutes of control time on the ground, the American landed very little damage with a total of nine significant strikes across the entire fight.
It was a clear and common opinion that this would separate the two men on the scorecards with Sumudaerji landing 45 significant strikes with 114 thrown in total.
Fight fans around the world were then shocked to hear that the bout had gone to a split decision with the scorecards showing that judge Jinichiro Kamijo scored both the first and second rounds for Raposo where he did very little, landing just two significant strikes in the second.
Sumudaerji deserved the win but things could have been very different despite the scoring criteria.
Fight fans were not happy with the first decision result of UFC 314 despite the right man getting his hand raised at the end of the contest.
One response in particular was incredibly critical of both Kamijo and Raposo following the outcome, writing, “Fire the judge who scored that for raposo then cut Raposo dog s— fighter.”
Many felt like Raposo had no one but himself to blame due to his low output whilst others feared for what this might mean later on in the night when the judges are called into action again.
“It is going to be a wild night for decisions lmao,” with another response urging the athletes to put it all on the line. “Everybody better go for finishes tonight.”
