Former UFC fighter opens up on the far-reaching effects of poor judging on the sport

UFC Judge Sal D
UFC Judge Sal D'Amato, Kai Kara-France vs. Amir Albazi (Image Courtesy - MMA Fighting, Reddit)

Following the fight between Kai Kara-France and Amir Albazi, former UFC Fighter and analyst, Dan Hardy spoke to Submission Radio, and brought up the ill-impacts of poor judging on the sport.

Speaking on the topic, Hardy said:

"What I'd like to see is judges to be able to stand in front of the public and make, you know, good reasoning for why they made those decisions. The judges that I know that work in the European scene, they are, I mean, they'll sit down and tell you why they scored every round. And they sit down with themselves after the event and discuss it amongst themselves as well.
"We had the same thing in boxing the other week as well. There was a lot of controversy around the Haney-Lomachenko scoring. And it's the same thing again, you know. The judges just get in their car, they drive home and the whole industry is left shaken by this one person's decision. And this person isn't held accountable in any way."

Check out the clip here:

The controversy regarding judging was stirred up again after the Kara-France and Albazi main event went down.

To many, Kara-France edged out a decision and warranted the win. The judges, however, awarded Albazi the split decision. Albazi secured a fair amount of control time, but landed little damage.


Kai Kara-France and Israel Adesanya slam judges

Kai Kara-France took to Twitter to express his outrage by the decision. After the fight, he tweeted:

"Who’s worse UFC judges or NRL Refs?"

He was backed up by his teammate, UFC fighter and middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya. Adesanya went on somewhat of a tirade against the judges in a series of tweets.

First, Adesanya posted the scorecards and said:

"I tweeted that before even seeing the scorecards because I knew them two will f**k it up!! Hoooow many times will they rob athletes of their moments of glory, if their money, their livelihood for their family. F****ck them c***s, they need to expire quickly and go. Mike Bell was the only judge to score this properly, the other two deff need to disappear."

Then, he appeared to call out judges Chris Lee and Sal D'Amato by name. Finally, Adesanya stated the importance of holding judges accountable in his tweet.

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