UFC Seattle was a calamity for Henry Cejudo as he had to walk away from the cage with not a win, but a loss with diplopia and corneal abrasion on the sides. Even though the bout ended with Song Yadong getting his hands raised, the fighting community and ‘Triple C’ weren’t happy at all. Voices kept rising, claiming that the fight should be overturned. But Dana White was against that notion. However, that didn’t stop Cejudo from striving for justice.

During the post-fight press conference, a reporter asked the UFC head honcho about a rematch between Yadong and Cejudo. But White had seen it all and wasn’t in the mood for a rematch. He said, “I just don’t want to see it again.” And as far as the eye pokes were concerned, White believed that they weren’t intentional. The UFC CEO said, “Why would he poke him in the eye? He was doing pretty well.” But Cejudo had a reply set in store for the UFC boss. He claimed, “Did Song do it intentionally? No. Should there be a point deducted? 100 percent, man.”

And now, the former UFC bantamweight champion shared a post by ESPN MMA on his IG story. The post showed visuals of Yadong’s two fingers poking ‘Triple C’s eyes. That was the moment that determined that the fight had reached its end. And his protest against ‘Kung Fu Kid’s victory continued. He captioned the story, “Buy one get one free I guess. All respect but you should not be rewarded for committing a penalty like this.”   

Henry Cejudo’s protests ignited a fire in the fighting community. But the veteran referee, ‘Big’ John McCarthy, had a response in store for everyone who believed that the fight should have been overturned into a no-contest. Let’s see what the referee had to say.

Why did Song Yadong walk away with a victory over Henry Cejudo?

As the Olympian continued to ask for a rematch and to get points extracted from Yadong’s scorecards, McCarthy revealed that giving the Chinese fighter the win was indeed the right decision. On the ‘Weighing In’ podcast with Josh Thomson, ‘Big’ John pointed out that the fight was already 3 rounds down when the eye pokes disrupted the flow. And that was the reason why ‘Kung Fu Kid’ won via a technical decision. 

McCarthy said, “Once he enters into the fourth round now he can go to what is a technical decision. He can go to the scorecards. And since he had three rounds completed, that was the right call for him to do. You don’t want if it was if that if the eye poke had happened in the second round, then it would have probably ended up as a no-contest, which is, I guess, better for Henry, but it’s not better for the sport. It’s not better for the UFC as a whole. You want people to move forward. You want to have a winner in the fight.”

‘Triple C’ was initially okay with the eye poke. But things began to change when he started seeing double images. With his vision compromised, he was left unable to continue. And the judges had already scored the bout 29-28-29-28, and 30-27 in favor of the Chinese fighter. But would things have been different had Cejudo continued the fight? Guess we’ll never know. 

What are your thoughts on the main event for UFC Seattle? Do you think the fight should be overturned to a no-contest? Let us know what you think in the comments down below.