Aljamain Sterling sat in Merab Dvalishvili’s corner at UFC 333 in Abu Dhabi. He watched his teammate lose a unanimous decision to Petr Yan, and then he went on the Weekly Scraps podcast to argue the judges missed half the fight. I like Sterling on this stuff. He talks like a guy who has been on the wrong end of a scorecard and actually read the rulebook afterward. I also think he’s about half right, which in a judging argument is roughly the best anybody ever does.
His whole case lives in Round 3. All three judges scored it 10-9 for Yan, and Sterling thinks that was far too confident a call for a round that close.
“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.
The numbers back up the first half of that sentence. According to Essentially Sports, Dvalishvili outlanded Yan 31 to 24 in significant strikes in the third. Seven extra clean shots in a five-minute round is real work, and Merab put it in.
Then Sterling dropped his best line: “I agree damage should score, but what happened to all of the other damage?”
That question deserves an answer, so here’s mine. The other damage got outweighed by one body kick.
The Kick That Bought the Round
The Unified Rules put damage ahead of volume. In practice, judges tend to give the round to whoever came closer to ending the fight. Yan landed a thudding kick to the body that made Dvalishvili wince. When a guy nicknamed The Machine visibly flinches, that registers with three people sitting cageside with pencils. Seven extra significant strikes that the opponent walks through don’t hit the same.
We’ve seen this movie. Rob Font held a significant edge in striking numbers over Marlon Vera on April 30, 2022, and Vera won a unanimous decision anyway because he rocked Font multiple times. Volume lost to impact. It happens constantly at bantamweight, where everybody throws a lot and only some of it hurts.
Sterling’s sharpest counterpoint is that the kick never dropped Merab. He pointed out it wasn’t a shot that sent him to the canvas or left him rocked or on skates. Fair. A wince falls well short of a knockdown, and I’d love to see judges explain exactly where that line sits. But if the rules say damage first, a fighter doubling over from a body shot sits on the damage side of the ledger, even if it only lasts a second.
Sterling Basically Argued Himself Out of a Robbery
Here’s where I give Sterling credit and take the argument away from him in the same breath. He was honest. Way more honest than most losing corners.
“It was a great fight, coin flip of a round for Round 3,” he said. “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.”
He also conceded that Yan finished strong (“kudos to him”) and that nobody really separated in the fight. His exact words were “I don’t feel like there was anyone that stood out in that fight.”
Read that back. If nobody stood out, nobody got robbed. A robbery needs a clear winner who loses. What Sterling described is a close fight where his guy came up short on a round he admits could have gone either way. That’s frustrating. It’s also just MMA judging working the way it usually works.
And the 10-10 idea? I get why a corner man wants it. A draw would have saved Merab from a second loss to Yan. As a fan, though, I’d have hated it. These two have now fought three times. A draw in the latest one would have settled nothing and left everybody yelling about a fight that ended without an answer.
Then Topuria and O’Malley Showed Up
Sterling at least brought an argument. Ilia Topuria, watching from Georgia, brought a livestream meltdown.
“Who watched the fight?” Topuria said. “48-47, Yan? No. What are you saying? Who won? Merab won, yes.”
No round breakdown, no stats, just vibes and loyalty. Fans piled on, and then Sean O’Malley wandered in with the meanest line of the week on a podcast with MMA Guru.
“I heard a couple people, I heard Ilia saying, What fight are the judges watching?!’ I’m like, how hard did Justin Gaethje hit you?” O’Malley said.
O’Malley wasn’t exactly a neutral party there, since Essentially Sports names him alongside Song Yadong as Yan’s most likely next title challenger. But he called it “savages” on both sides and still said Yan won, and on the scoring logic, I’m with him.
Sterling’s frustration is legit. His conclusion isn’t. Yan is up 2-1 in this rivalry, a fourth fight looks a long way off, and Dvalishvili now has to climb the bantamweight ladder again while Yan picks between O’Malley and Song.
