Aljamain Sterling believes Round 3 of the UFC 333 bantamweight title fight was a lot closer than people think.
Champion Petr Yan (20-5 MMA, 12-4 UFC) rallied to defeat Merab Dvalishvili (21-5 MMA, 14-3 UFC) by unanimous decision in Saturday's co-main event at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi. All three judges awarded Dvalishvili Rounds 1 and 2, with the rest of the rounds scored for Yan.
The champ turned things around in Round 3 when he hurt Dvalishvili with a body kick late, but Sterling questions if that was enough to take the round.
"It's just such a subjective thing. One guy lands a lot more punches and one guy has two big shots, and then all of a sudden it steals the entire round," Sterling said on his "Weekly Scraps" podcast. "It's subjective, you
know, and I know people say damage is what scores. And I agree damage should score, but what happened to all of the other damage? It's not like it was a shot that sent him to the canvas or a shot that had him rocked or on skates or anything like that. So, it's a weird thing.
"It was a great fight, coin flip of a round for Round 3. I would have liked to see it go 10-10, but that's never going to happen and then the fight ends in a draw. I don't feel like there was anyone that stood out in that fight. Of course, Petr Yan ended the fight strong, kudos to him, but scoring the fight round by round, I don't feel like we got a definitive answer. You could say the fight was trending in Petr Yan's way, I agree, but that's the way the decision went, and unfortunately we came up short."
Dvalishvili won their first fight in March 2023 with a stifling grappling approach. Yan was able to avenge his loss by dethroning Dvalishvili with a striking masterclass at UFC 323 and capped off the trilogy with a comeback win at UFC 333. Dvalishvili broke his own record for most takedown attempts in a fight when he shot 58 times against Yan in their trilogy.
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Aljamain Sterling takes issue with Yan vs. Dvalishvili scoring at UFC 333
