Alexander Volkov lost a controversial split decision to Ciryl Gane on Saturday night on the main card of UFC 310 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, and multiple people—including UFC President Dana White—cried foul.
The fight was a rematch of Volkov and Gane’s June 2021 clash, which also saw the Russian veteran lose via unanimous decision.
Saturday night’s fight was different. Volkov appeared to control the fight on the ground in two of the three rounds, yet he still didn’t get the nod. White was captured on video telling Volkov, “You got f#####, bad. The whole arena thought you won the fight.” You can see and hear the moment in the video below from ESPN MMA.
Controversial boxing judge Adalaide Byrd was one of two judges who scored the fight for Gane. Junichiro Kamijo also scored the fight 29-28 in Gane’s favor.
After the fight, White told the media he thought Volkov had won, but he mentioned that he’d had a conversation with the commission, which suggested a strong case was made to support Byrd and Kamijo’s reasoning for scoring the fight in Gane’s favor.
The official UFC fight stats support Byrd and Kamijo. While it is indisputable that Volkov dominated the third round, the fight stats suggest Gane may have held an advantage overall.
Gane landed two more significant strikes in the first and second rounds. He had a takedown in the second, a frame Volkov failed to take the Frenchman down. And, in the first round, Gane had a slight edge in control time including two submission attempts.
Granted, even with these statistics, having watched the fight, I scored it 29-28 for Volkov. The judges don’t have the fight stats when they’re turning in their scorecards. They have to judge the round based on what they saw in real-time.
If nothing else, the numbers suggest Volkov wasn’t robbed, even if he still has a strong case.
Demetrious Johnson Agrees With Dana White on UFC 310 Heavyweight Clash
White wasn’t the only person who felt Volkov did enough to win the fight. Former UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson discussed the fight and shared a similar take.
“Now, this was a very interesting matchup because I felt it had a lot on the line, especially since you had someone who could potentially fight Tom Aspinall,” Johnson said in a video on his YouTube channel. “The fight was, you know, kind of back and forth, with Volkov walking Ciryl Gane down and not giving Gane the opportunity to set up his shots. I think Gane moves better on the feet than Volkov, but Volkov was able to take him down in the beginning of the fight, leading to a lot of grappling exchanges. The weird thing about this fight is that I had Volkov winning because I felt he was pressuring Gane a lot more. I thought he was winning the grappling exchanges, but the judges gave it to Gane. So, there’s a little bit of controversy there. Maybe they gave it to Gane because he was going for the kimura on Volkov, but I’m just not sure what happened.”
The decision won’t be overturned and quite frankly, I’ve seen much worse scorecards from judges. Still, this loss has to sting for Volkov. It will be interesting to see what White and the UFC elect to do with the veteran now as it appears he’s firmly behind Gane following two official losses to the Frenchman.