Michael Bisping doesn’t see how Alexa Grasso was awarded a 10-8 in Round 5 of the Noche UFC headliner.
Flyweight champion Grasso (16-3-1 MMA, 8-3-1 UFC) retained her belt when she battled Valentina Shevchenko (23-4-1 MMA, 12-3-1 UFC) to a split draw in their title-fight rematch this past Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Each fighter was awarded a 48-47 scorecard from a judge, while the final one was scored 47-47.
Not only did Bisping think Shevchenko won the fight, but he makes a case that she could have been awarded four rounds.
“Opinions are like a**holes: Everyone’s got one,” Bisping said on his YouTube channel. “And apparently I’m the biggest a**hole because if you go on Twitter, they’re ripping me a new a**hole right now because I say Valentina Shevchenko should have won that fight three rounds to two, maybe even four rounds to one. Round 4 was a close one.”
The round that cost Shevchenko the fight was the final one, which judge Mike Bell scored 10-8 in favor of Grasso. Bisping understands why people may score that round for Grasso, but 10-8 is a scorecard he can’t fathom.
“I can kind of understand that because maybe the shots from (Grasso) on top were more damaging – I’ll concede that,” Bisping said. “Let’s go with that. Let’s go with Grasso wins that. Well, Shevchenko would have still won the fight three rounds to two, and that’s official when you look at the scorecards. But judge Mike Bell gave a 10-8 round to Alexa Grasso in Round 5, and there’s just no way. There’s no way that was a 10-8 round.”
Bisping explains that in the past, a 10-8 round had to be complete domination from beginning to end. He acknowledges that the new criteria is slightly more lenient, but despite the change, he still doesn’t see Grasso’s Round 5 warranting a 10-8.
“The new criteria is – and I haven’t got the actual documentation on the verbiage right in front of me – but it’s something like this: You’ve just got to have a clear winner – a clear winner where you can look at it and very confidently say, ‘That lady won.’ Simple as that. That makes it a 10-8 round. Well, I don’t think Round 5 was a 10-8 round. Far from it,” Bisping said.
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for Noche UFC.
