Controversy Report: UFC Atlanta

UFC Atlanta: Controversy Report

UFC’s return to Atlanta ended with a vintage Kamaru Usman win over Joaquin Buckley. 4 Rounds of domination and a late comeback attempt wrapped up what was an eventful night in Atlanta. Of course, we didn’t necessarily have many judging incidents, more so interventions in the middle of the fight that either hindered a solid outcome or yielded no outcome at all. 

Paul Craig x Rodolfo Bellato ends in a No Contest

This fight was initially meant to be the co-headliner of a regular Apex Fight Night a few weeks ago, though was cancelled because Rodolfo Bellato had a Herpes outbreak that prevented him from making the walk. Fast forward a few months, and we finally have these two squaring off with each other again, though this time, we saw them step into the cage. 

Paul Craig needed a win to prolong his UFC career after an unfortunate losing skid and in this fight he looked solid. Despite many believing that Bellato was winning, the round was close, with Craig landing 17 strikes to Bellato’s 10, at a higher accuracy as well.

Towards the end of the round, Craig lands an upkick as Bellato is grounded and attempts to advance position. The upkick in fact rocks Bellato badly. As he is falling back, he looks at the referee in awe and confusion, only to seem unconscious, be brought back to life and be informed the fight has been stopped. 

From that point on, we knew the fight continuation was impossible, due to his status. Bellato made it evident he was in no condition to continue. At this point, referee Kevin MacDonald had the option of declaring the foul accidental and having this fight end as a No Contest or to Disqualify Craig. 

It is important to take a few angles into this incident. Craig did throw the upkick with intent of hurting Bellato, though in his defense, he didn’t believe Bellato was fully grounded. Moreover, while the strike did land, the form Bellato absorbed the strike isn’t normal to someone getting badly hurt. This raised alarm bells. 

MacDonald was left with the option of awarding a free win to Bellato after an embarrassing display or to punish Craig for the lack of awareness. In my eyes, the correct decision should have been the exact same as we saw with Pena x Harrison, where a point is promptly deducted, though the impact wasn’t remotely the same. 

Leaving room for a fighter to find a way out and even take home an extra paycheck is leaving room for mistakes. Gladly, Bellato wasn’t awarded a win, because had he won, this would be further incentive for fighters to look for DQ wins, particularly if a fight is close or not. While we don’t know for certain, and probably never will, it can be speculated that Bellato’s worst performance wasn’t even his fighting, but his theatrics following the hit. 

Due to the circumstances, MacDonald chose the ethically correct decision. Because of Bellato’s state, not even a point would be able to be deducted, since he was unable to continue.

Unfortunately for us, this wasn’t the last bizarre incident witnessed inside the octagon.  

Mansur Abdul-Malik defeats Cody Brundage by Unanimous Decision

When it comes to controversial fight endings, Cody Brundage has been a recurring character, ranging from 2023 onwards. If we go back to September 2023, pressure-wrestler Jacob Malkoun dominates the first round against Cody Brundage. In that one round fight, Brundage got taken down once, controlled for almost 4 minutes, got out-landed 28 to 2 and was unfortunately struck with two elbows to the back of his head. The referee in question, Mark Smith, who’s already been a side-character in a few similar stories. 

Smith stops the fight, and immediately tends to Brundage, who was seemingly recovering to prepare himself for the fight to resume, though pretends he is unable to continue. Keep in mind, this was a round where he was arguably losing 10-8. Smith didn’t even entertain taking a point. The theatrics work, Brundage wins by DQ and his UFC contract gets extended. Horrible job by referee Mark Smith. 

Fast forward a few fights, following his submission loss to Bo Nickal, Cody Brundage is now facing Abdul Razak Alhassan. Again, Brundage finds himself hurt early in this fight, getting tagged, hurt, and outstruck 23-1 in the first 30 seconds. Evidently, we see a few strikes to the back of the head, but none that would alter Brundage already getting finished. Brundage, was essentially finished, and yet again played into the theatrics, listening and immediately communicating with his corner about a possibility of a DQ. 

Fortunately, Dan Miragliotta declares this a No-Contest, hence extending Brundage’s contract even further. While not a DQ win for Brundage, it was annoying to see him escape with yet another undeserving non-loss. 

Almost a year later, Brundage is off the best win of his career over Julian Marquez and is now tasked with a hard fight against undefeated prospect Mansur Abudl-Malik. The fight is luke-warm for the first two rounds. Scoring wise, two judges had Malik up 29-28, with judge Will Fisher, giving Mansur a 30-27 victory, which in my opinion was the correct decision. 

Now, the fight was stopped at the start of Round 3 after an electrifying start that saw Malik tag and hurt Brundage. To his credit, Brundage also landed back, though Malik’s strikes carried a bigger sting. The final blow was a knee up the middle, though interrupted with a slight head-clash. 

Following the finish, Brundage was quick to dispute. Perhaps he felt he would get away with yet another DQ victory, though this time around referee Brent McKeehan called for the score-cards to be tallied, since Round 3 had already started. I believe this was an oddity, since it was less than a minute of true combat, though it makes sense, it is according to regulations, and it avoids the KO and the NC at the same time. 

Different from Craig’s kick, this head-clash was clearly accidental, and head-clashes aren’t commonly caused by one person. If you wish to look back at something similar, Kevin Holland once had a submission loss to Kyle Daukaus called off after it was seen that Holland was rendered almost unconscious to the head-clash. This however, took place in R1 and not R3 of combat. 

Let’s see if we do see any more clarifying rule changes in the future that would impede a lot of the decision making to be done simply by referees. 

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