“Why Are the Russians Quiet All of a Sudden?” – UFC Community Goes Berserk at Aljamain Sterling’s Ironical Tweet

UFC Vegas 51 co-main event bout had a weird finish. Not only the finishing sequence but also the result of the bout shocked the MMA space. The co-main recreated an Aljamain Sterling-Petr Yan moment.

The ending of the bout between Caio Borralho and Gadzhi Omargadzhiev saw the infamous Petr Yan-knee moment from the initial Yan-Sterling bout at UFC 259. At UFC 259, then-champion Petr Yan got disqualified and ‘Funk Master’ became the UFC bantamweight champion via disqualification due to an illegal knee from Yan.

In the penultimate bout of The UFC on ESPN 34, Caio Borralho won a controversial technical decision against the Russian fighter Gadzhi Omargadzhiev. This came after Borralho landed an illegal knee to the head of Omargadzhiev.

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Omargadzhiev’s one hand was grounded, thus, the strike was deemed illegal. However, the ref decided to rule the knee ‘accidental’ and not ‘intentional’ as was the case with former bantamweight champion Petr Yan‘s knee to Aljamain Sterling.

Thus, it blew away the MMA space.

Why was the UFC Vegas 51 fight ended in a ‘technical decision’ and not a ‘no-contest’?

The outcome of the bout saw Borralho win the technical decision. In other words, the judges scored the bout till the time the ref stopped the fight and scored it for Borralho. Though, in the bout, the ref had to intervene; he felt the illegal strike from Borralho was not intentional. Thus, he didn’t disqualify Borralho.

As there were no disqualifications, they could have ruled the bout out as a no-contest as fight fans saw one such example in the fight between Leon Edwards and Belal Muhammad, where an accidental strike from Edwards stopped the fight.

The referee ruled it a no-contest, and the fight didn’t go to the judge’s scorecards. The reason being, the fight, Edwards vs. Muhammad, didn’t complete the midway point. Otherwise, that would’ve gone to the judge’s scorecards as well.

Hence, in case of an accidental strike, the duration of the bout determines whether it will be ruled a ‘no-contest’ or a ‘technical decision’.

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What do you make of UFC on ESPN 34 co-main event? Let us know in the comments.