There was a lot of controversy at the end of the first round of the UFC 179 main event between Jose Aldo and Chad Mendes. Aldo had just gotten rolling with some solid strikes that seemed to hurt Mendes when the horn sounded to signal the end of the round, Aldo threw two punches that were on the late side, the last of which badly hurt Mendes.
In the end, it didn’t seem to really change the way the fight played out, but we’ll never know for sure how much they affected Mendes for the next round or two.
Aldo and Dana White discussed the situation after the fight (via MMA Fighting):
“When the round was over, I thought the fight was over,” Aldo said. “When I connected the punches and the referee stepped in, I thought it was over. I was about to run into the crowd, but I’m glad I didn’t [laughs].”
“[Mendes] got hit after the bell. I think that threw a lot of people off,” UFC president Dana White told Ariel Helwani on UFC Tonight. “People were going crazy that watched it on TV. But anybody that knows that was here live, you couldn’t hear it. I didn’t hear the bell go off.”
“I don’t think [the referee] heard [the bell],” he continued. “I didn’t hear it. I didn’t know either till after. My phone was blowing up from people were going crazy that were watching on TV saying how dirty that was that he got hit with two punches after, but it was so loud in this arena you couldn’t hear anything.”