When Beneil Dariush was announced as the winner after his fight against Michael Johnson at UFC Fight Night 73, most MMA fans and media described the decision as one of the worst in a long time. A couple of weeks have passed since then, and Dariush had time to re-watch the fight and build his own opinion on the outcome. He came to the conclusion that it wasn’t him who got favored that night. In fact, he blames the commentators for favoring Johnson.
“I re-watched the fight a couple of times. And to be honest, the first time I’ve watched it, I watched it with the volume on, where I felt like the commentators were really favoring him. And I felt like, ‘Whoa man, it looked like a very convincing win for him’,” Dariush told GNP1.de. “And then I re-watched it and I put it on mute the second time. Then I realized the fight was way closer. It’s true he won the first round, and I definitely won the third round. I out-landed him, out-worked him. The second round was the close round.”
“So if you look at it, I finished stronger than he did. And another thing is, too, as far as the Fight Metrics, we were really close. He landed a few more punches, but I landed more head shots. He landed more body shots. So if you’re looking at it, it wasn’t like it was a landslide victory for him, it wasn’t a landslide victory for me. It wasn’t like, after the fight I was like, ‘Yeah, I won the fight, I’m going crazy or something’. It was a close fight. I get it, and I understand why a lot of fans are angry. If they’re his fans, they’re gonna be angry about him. If they’re my fans, they’re gonna be happy for me.”
Must Reads
Dariush feels that the style of commentating can influence oneself’s judgement.
“Going back to the commentating, I think it had to do a lot with the way the commentators were speaking. And I think the way they judged the fight, everybody else kind of judged it. I’m not blaming the commentators, but I think they do have some ties to Michael Johnson, so it’s possible they were favoring him from the beginning. That’s why their judging went in that direction.
“Kenny Florian and Rashad Evans are very close, I believe. Rashad Evans is a training partner of Michael Johnson and Rashad Evans also is very vocal about how dominant Michael Johnson was. He made it sound like Michael Johnson won every round and (like) he won the all clearly. Again, if you watch it again, watch it on mute. You can be the judge yourself.”