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If you asked most people in the MMA sphere prior to this event, the majority would be happy about Chris Weidman getting his hand raised in his featured bout with Bruno Silva. That’s ultimately what happened, but it was nothing short of a crapshoot to get there.
Seriously, what was all that?
Eye pokes happen all the time in the UFC. I can live with the idea of one or two of them changing the course of the fight in an unfortunate manner, but we move on.
This fight between Weidman (16-7 MMA, 12-7 UFC) and Silva should’ve been a no contest, though. Weidman committed numerous fouls and was cautioned multiple times for extended fingers during striking exchanges. And then look what happened at the end? He pawed the eyes of Silva not once, but twice during the final “knockdown” — and faced no consequences.
The thing that made this even more ridiculous is the commission first called it a third-round TKO finish, then in the time between Weidman doing his post-fight interview, it was switched to a unanimous decision?
Like many others, I didn’t even know an official result could be flipped in that quick of a fashion outside of a scoring tabulation error. And additionally (even though it’s semantics), it seems like it should’ve been a technical decision and not a unanimous one. The fact that change was made at all shows Weidman’s eye pokes were acknowledged but seemingly deemed unintentional.
I wanted to see Weidman win again as much as anyone after all the horrible things he’s been through in recent years, but not like this. It’s not fair to Silva, who has now lost three straight and has his UFC career in jeopardy.
New Jersey has a history of being one of the most competent commissions in the U.S. Perhaps further review will be taken and the right call will be made. It should be, because none of this made sense.
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC on ESPN 54.
