Jose Aldo came out on the short end of a split decision against Mario Bautista on the pay-per-view portion of UFC 307 at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Aldo was disappointed with the decision, as it appears he believed he did enough to win. Others in the MMA community–yours truly included–agreed with him. After the official judge’s scorecard was read, multiple people in the MMA community hit X with spirited, pro-Aldo posts.
Lightweight contender Renato Moicano kept it short and sweet. He called it a “robbery.”
Verdict MMA’s scorecard, which aggregates scores from users online, showed Aldo as the winner of two of the three rounds.
Veteran MMA columnist Shaheen Al-Shatti said he scored the fight 30-24 for Aldo. He was joking, but he felt Aldo deserved the decision.
A former Aldo foe, Conor McGregor, was very vocal about the decision and the referee’s reluctance to separate the fighters. At the same time, Bautista chose to lean against the Brazilian icon on the Octagon fence.
Aldo won the second and third rounds on my scorecard, which would have given him a 29-28 victory. Judge Chris Lee scored it for Aldo, but Derek Cleary and Mike Bell gave it to Bautista by the same score.
The question you may be asking if you didn’t see the fight is how Bautista won. He won the fight on the strength of control, but it didn’t come from takedowns. Bautista missed on all 10 of his takedown attempts, but he successfully held Aldo against the fence.
I didn’t score the last two rounds for him because he did no damage and landed very few strikes during those sequences. Bautista didn’t even try for submission. He was content on laying against Aldo, which caused a chorus of boos from the crowd.
If you look below at the fight stats, you’ll see Aldo out-landed Bautista in significant strikes in the last two rounds, and he also landed at a higher percentage in all three rounds.
It’s easy to see why Aldo was upset. However, Aldo’s reluctance to move away from the fence cost him. Had he been more active in that position, perhaps the outcome would have been different.
Here is a look at all of the results from UFC 307.
UFC 307 Pay-Per-View card Results
- (c) Alex Pereira def. Khalil Rountree Jr. via TKO in Round 4 – Pereira retains the UFC light heavyweight championship.
- Julianna Peña def. (c) Raquel Pennington via split decision (29-28×2, 28-29) – Pena wins the UFC women’s bantamweight championship
- Mario Bautista def. Jose Aldo via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
- Roman Dolidze def. Kevin Holland via TKO at 5:00 of Round 1 (Holland was Injured in the first round and couldn’t continue)
- Kayla Harrison def. Ketlen Vieira via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
UFC 307 Preliminary Card Results
- Joaquin Buckley def. Stephen Thompson via KO at 2:17 of Round 3
- Iasmin Lucindo def. Marina Rodriguez via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
- Alexander Hernandez def. Austin Hubbard via split decision (27-30, 29-28, 29-28)
- Cesar Almeida def. Ihor Potieria via unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 30-27)
UFC 307 Early Preliminary Card Results
- Ryan Spann def. Ovince Saint Preux via submission at 1:35 of Round 1 (Guillotine)
- Tecia Pennington defeats Carla Esparza via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 30-27)
- Court McGee defeats Tim Means via submission at 3:19 of Round 1 (Rear-Naked Choke)
