We got an instant classic Saturday night at UFC 256, as flyweight champion Deiveson Figueiredo and Brandon Moreno battled to a majority draw. The fight was an absolute barnburner from start to finish and should reopen the debate for “Fight of the Year” after it seemed Zhang Weili and Joanna Jedrzejczyk seemed to have it locked up back in March.
If there’s something that was disappointing about the UFC 256 main event, it’s that we didn’t get a winner, and that’s for two key reasons.
One:
- Referee Jason Herzog deducted a point from Figueiredo after a hard kick to the groin in the third round.
As a result of this, all three judges scored the round 9-9, meaning they essentially all had it in favor of Figueiredo. Now, in the immediate aftermath of UFC 256, there seems to be some debate about whether Herzog should’ve deducted a point in the first place, but you have to remember that Figueiredo had previously committed a foul with an eye poke. And his kick to Moreno’s groin was absolutely nasty. It’s not hard to see why the ref would deduct a point after that.
Two:
- Judge Junichiro Kamijo scored the fifth round 10-9 in favor of Moreno as part of his 47-47 overall score.
Plain and simply, this was atrocious. Nobody who watched the fight with proper eye sight would score that round for Moreno. Kamijo was the only judge to do that. Even after the fight, Moreno said he regretted not pushing the pace more in the fifth.
Without that inexplicable 10-9, Moreno would’ve won a majority decision. So when you look at the scoring, Kamijo is the reason why we ended up with a draw that shouldn’t have been.
Check out the full scorecard below:
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