Bantamweight contender Cory Sandhagen took another step forward in his march toward the UFC title with an impressive win over Marlon “Chito” Vera in the main event of Saturday’s UFC on ESPN 43 event in San Antonio, Texas.
While Sandhagen (16-4 MMA, 9-3 UFC) used dominant clinch work and a clearly improved wrestling attack to control the fight from start to finish, he did have to sweat through a rather odd split-decision read, taking the fight with scores of 50–45 and 49–46 from respected veteran judges Sal D’Amato and Chris Lee, respectively, while Joel Ojeda inexplicably scored it 48–47 for Vera (22-8-1 MMA, 14-7 UFC).
MMADecisions.com, which tracks media scores for MMA contests, noted 24 scores in favor of Sandhagen, with not a single journalist leaning toward Vera.
