Controversy Report : UFC Vegas 103

UFC Vegas 103

What started off as a simple UFC Apex card on Saturday night, quickly turned into one of the most controversial cards of the year. Again, eye pokes were a part of the main-event, bringing into light penalties, circumstances, gloves and the way a fight should be stopped upon this situation. Of course, we had a couple close split-decisions which we will go over, as well as referee interventions. 

While the prelims were pretty much uneventful in terms of controversy, the main-card is where it all picked up. 

Hyder Amil defeats William Gomis

• Split Decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)

Following a Split Decision win over Joanderson Brito, a lot of talk was on how William Gomis was saved by the French Judges in his native land. This fight was somewhat different with two clear rounds, with only one round up in the air, and of course, we will be breaking it down for you. 

The first round was a unanimous round by all three judges. There is no mystery here. Gomis landed the better shots, outlanded Hyder Amil by one shot, and had thirty seconds more of control time over Amil. Optics also dictated that the shots Gomis landed were far more impactful, despite Amil’s forward pressure. While close, it was a correctly scored round. 

As we move on to the second round, things become far more interesting. Judges Bell and McCarthy scored it 10-9 for Amil, with the sole judge scoring it for Gomis being Anthony Maness. Again striking in this round was razor close, with Gomis landing 48 to Amil’s 45, though this time Amil did have more control time. Moreover, the forward pressure and pairing of body and head-shots was impressive. As we’ve seen recently, judges do value octagon control when striking numbers are even, and Amil was dominant in this aspect, wearing down Gomis. 

The third and final round was once more unanimous. This time around, all for Amil. When it comes to statistics, the discrepancy was large. Amil outlanded Gomis by 18 significant strikes, landing one takedown and having one minute of control time, while overall dominating the octagon and dictating pace. With that, the final score of 29-28 for Amil was more than justified, especially with how well he ended the fight. 

Nasrat Haqparast defeats Esteban Ribovics

• Split Decision (29-28, 29-28, 28-29) 

It seems like every time we see an exciting prospect in a close fight, the fight gets awarded to the younger, exciting fighter. Well, that wasn’t the case this time around. Only one round was unanimously scored, and that was the third and final round. 

Round 1 was scored 10-9 for Nasrat Haqparast by Judges Bell and D’Amato with judge Lee scoring it for Esteban Ribovics. Statistically speaking, Ribovics out-landed Haqparast in this round, though I’d say the cleaner shots were from Nasrat earlier on. The significant strikes to the head were also on Ribovics’s side. Personally, this was the closest round of all, and I can understand arguments for both men. Again, claims for a robbery on this particular round are unfair, because of how close it was in all standards and yet another reason for the implementation of neutral-scoring rounds. If rounds are this close, why not implement 10-10 rounds? 

Round 2 was one that perplexed me. While close in some terms, Ribovics out-landed the Moroccan by 13 strikes, including landing 14 more shots to the head of Haqparast and overall picking up the pace, and adding more volume to his shots. After viewing this round, I was certain all judges would score it unanimously for the Argentine, but in fact the opposite happened. Attempting to understand the view-point of judges on this round is futile as stats do show the Argentine up ahead, unless the damage was such that Haqparast won the round, which I personally did not see as the case. 

Now Round 3 was once more unanimous, this time all for Ribovics, who landed some dangerous shots on Haqparast, including a vicious knee that opened up a bad cut under the eye of Haqparast. The heavier shots of this fight were landed in this round, and personally it was the most dominant round of the fight. Statistically, Nasrat out-landed Ribovics by 4 strikes, though the strikes from the Argentine were far more damaging, even forcing a takedown from Nasrat towards the later stages of the fight. As the bell sounded, Ribovics danced in a mocking fashion because of Nasrat’s reactions to the heavy shots. 

When the cards were announced, I was aware of the close first round, but was confident in the later two rounds being scored for Ribovics. I was surprised when Haqparast won, especially considering how one judge awarded  Round 1 for Ribovcis, while none did for the second round. 29-28 Ribovics with the first round being awarded for Nasrat was in my eyes the most fair-outcome, but of course, this report would not exist without controversy inside this sport. 

Cody Brundage defeats Julian Marquez

• Rd. 1 TKO 

This fight is being considered by many as the BEST one round fight we’ve seen so far in 2025 and fair enough, it was electrifying, though there is a slight controversy to be talked about with our well known friend, Mark Smith. 

While Cody Brundage did get his hand raised off a beautiful KO win, he did find himself in momentary trouble with Julian Marquez landing some big and powerful strikes against the cage, leading to both mouthpieces flying out of the mounts of the middleweights. The rules state that the referee should wait for a stop in action before returning the mouth-pieces to the fighters.

The claim here was that Smith interrupted the action too quickly in a moment where Marquez was having a bit more success against Brundage. Of course, these moments don’t have strict parameters on them. Smith didn’t want broken teeth flying and for it to be less civil than it needed to be, and while he did somewhat hinder the moment, which could have helped Brundage, I believe he stopped the fight in a moment where far less action was occurring. 

Manel Kape defeats Asu Almabayev

• Rd. 1 TKO 

From the start of this fight, it was clear Manel Kape was levels above Asu Almabayev, despite the dominance portrayed in the first few UFC fights by Almabayev and his incredible 17 fight win streak. Failing 6 takedowns, and with only 29 seconds of control time, Kape was able to land damaging shots on Almabayev at will, but of course, not without controversy. 

The first round saw Manel outland Asu and land the bigger shots. So far so good, a dominant start, nothing more than that. The second round, Kape did more of that; however here is where the issue occurred of an initial eye poke complaint from Asu’s side. The review team saw that there was no eye poke, and instead it was a punch that hit Asu’s eye, which is why it felt like an eye poke. The fight then continued with more dominance from the Portuguese, however fans and viewers pointed this out as a Beltran mistake, where there were more parties involved in the video team. Here is where we, as fans, need more clarity. Perhaps something like VAR (Video Assistant Referee) , used in professional soccer, would be extremely helpful inside the UFC. 

As we head into the third and final round, controversy increased further. Asu had more frustrated takedown attempts, with Manel defending them all, however the final sequence of the fight saw a flurry of clear eye pokes, missed by Beltran. Beltran, who has a clean track record, oversaw these eye-pokes and Kape continued his onslaught leading to a TKO who some claim was early, though personally, was bound to happen regardless. 

Breaking down the issues, it is clear that a fight pause was justified for these outpokes. There is also the argument that the stoppage was slightly early because Almabayev was putting effort for a takedown, however he was taking much damage while doing so, therefore it is understandable why it was stopped. We’ve seen similar cases, like when Colby Covington was working on a takedown against Kamaru Usman in their first bout in 2019.  

The true issue are the eye pokes. Thankfully, it isn’t as controversial because Kape was on his way to winning regardless, and a pause in this fight could perhaps lead to a No Contest and that would be even more controversial, as we’ve seen time and time again, a fighter take the No Contest if the trend is him losing the fight, which was the case here. 

In my opinion, these eye pokes should have been worthy of a point reduction, and for the fight to be continued. Issue would be that if Almabayev had displayed his inability to continue following the break, then Beltran would most likely have to call this a No Contest, which would cause controversy in how fighters use this loophole to evade a loss that was coming their way, despite being fit to continue. 

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