Chase Hooper, who won a controversial UFC match against Viacheslav Borshchev, says he doesn’t care whether Borshchev tapped out or not, as he believes it’s the referee’s responsibility to make that call.
Chase Hooper? He’s not losing sleep over whether Viacheslav Borshchev tapped out or not. Honestly, he couldn’t care less.
Last Saturday, Hooper and Borshchev went head-to-head in the UFC St. Louis prelims. Hooper claimed a second-round submission victory. It was arguably one of his career’s finest performances. But, there’s a catch.
The finish was a bit controversial. “Slava Claus” (Borshchev) protested the stoppage immediately. He insisted to referee Keith Peterson that he hadn’t tapped. The replay showed a single tap from Borshchev, which could’ve been part of a transition while defending against a D’arce choke. Some fans and fighters weren’t happy with the finish. Hooper? He’s not one of them.
Hooper’s take on it? “There was that specific angle where I felt like it was pretty direct, his hand was out, tap, whatever that means. I did feel that one movement,” he said on The MMA Hour.
He added, “But that’s my responsibility as a fighter. I wasn’t going to let go. Both me and him have to trust Keith — the referee — with the objective lens. He’s back from the fight. I’m in the mix, kind of tunnel vision. I did feel like it was either a panic tap or an unintentional one. I felt like I had it locked in but I didn’t squeeze enough to really force that issue.
Hooper felt that Borshchev’s grappling was “primitive.” He suggested that fighters who aren’t used to being put in submissions might tap earlier than necessary.
“At the end of the day, as the fighter, it’s on me to go until the ref tells me to stop,” Hooper continued. “That’s Keith’s bad if he didn’t tap. But that’s me trusting him, trusting his refereeing experience. He’s been in the cage longer than me, a lot more times. So yeah, it’s deferring to the responsible party in there. We can’t be responsible for our own safety in there. We need someone a little smarter for that. I’m trusting Keith with that decision. If he wouldn’t have stopped it, I would have been just fine with that too. Honestly, I felt like he was making me work quite a bit for that TKO.”
Regardless of the tap, Hooper was in control. He dropped Borshchev early in the fight. He spent most of the rest of it laying into his opponent with an onslaught of punches from top position. The action was so one-sided Peterson, nearly stopped the bout in the second round due to unanswered strikes from Hooper, but Borshchev was just able to survive, causing Hooper to transition to the submission attempt. Hooper thinks that might have played a role in Peterson’s quick trigger on the finish.
“That’s not my job to determine if he tapped or not,” Hooper said. “All my job to do was to let go when the ref told me to stop. I felt like the fight could have been stopped earlier from the strikes. Maybe that’s part of the reason Keith was looking for a way to help get him out of there, because he was doing just enough to keep it from getting stopped. But yeah, it’s not on me.”
The controversy does cast a shadow over what could’ve been Hooper’s career-best performance. He’s only 24, undefeated since moving back up to lightweight, and seems to be developing into a promising prospect. But the conversation is about a questionable referee stoppage. Hooper? He’s not bothered. He’s used to it.
“As long as they don’t overturn it, we’re golden,” Hooper said. “Which, I don’t think they really overturn fights anymore. It seems like a pretty hard thing to do. It’s one of those things where, any publicity is good publicity. It gets people watching the fight.
“Honestly, at this point, this is my ninth UFC fight. My Contender [Series] fight, I started off rocky. It’s been an up-and-down path the whole way. I’ve been so used to the fans trying to take away from whatever success I have, or dog-pile on you when you have troubles. I’m just so used to it at this point that it doesn’t bug me.”