MMA judge Joel Ojeda comes under fire for his controversial scorecard at UFC San Antonio, putting his competency into question.
MMA judging will never be perfect, but it’s rare when almost every fighter, journalist, fan, and pundit agrees on a particularly egregious scorecard. One of the best examples of that occurred at UFC San Antonio when Cory Sandhagen put on a lights out performance to beat Marlon “Chito” Vera in the main event. However, he had to sweat out a split decision due to judge Joel Ojeda, who inexplicably gave the final three rounds and the fight to Vera. Sal D’Amato and Chris Lee both overwhelmingly scored the fight in favor of Sandhagen with scores of 50-45 and 49-46.
Following the event, Ojeda has come under fire, as has the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation for placing him in the main event despite only previously scoring one UFC fight. UFC welterweight Matt Brown, who believes he’s been the victim of poor judging in the past, admitted that he’s never seen anything quite like the scorecard Ojeda handed in that night. Brown said about Ojeda on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer, “I don’t care what his experience is. I don’t care if he judged 100 fights before. There is no excuse for that scorecard whatsoever.”
Brown is quick to point out that if Ojeda made the wrong call then there’s always a chance that a second official could have done the same, which means Sandhagen loses. In Brown’s opinion, that would have been one of the worst decisions in the history of the sport, but as it stands, only one judge is taking the blame and he’ll likely fade back into anonymity until the UFC eventually returns to Texas. “The right guy won the fight. That’s great,” Brown said. “But there’s only three judges, there’s only three scorecards. He was one away from losing that fight. It just speaks to the larger problem whether it’s the judges themselves or whether it is the actual scoring system that is a little bit flawed and confusing. It’s just a larger problem.”