UFC 310 might have taken place late into the Las Vegas night, but there was a daylight robbery on the main card as Ciryl Gane was gifted a decision win over Alexander Volkov.
The towering Russian dominated most of the fight, yet the judges controversially awarded the victory to ‘Bon Gamin’ – as UFC fans begin to conduct their post-mortem, Alexander Volkov himself has come out to state that one judge specifically needs to be requalified or let go.
Alexander Volkov calls on UFC 310 judge to ‘be f***** fired’ after robbery
Typically, it’s only the victors who get the chance to speak to the media after a UFC event, but Alexander Volkov wasn’t going to go quietly into the night after he was robbed of a stonewall victory at UFC 310.
“Hello everyone, I just want to say first that it was a b***** decision, for sure,” stated the frustrated heavyweight, acknowledging that “I don’t know what we’re going to do with the decision, I am absolutely sure that I won the fight.”
Almost every single UFC fan watching his fight with Ciryl Gane had the bout scored for the Russian, with ‘Verdict MMA’ tweeting out that the result was “officially the worst decision of 2024” with a whopping score differential of 1.04.
“How can the guy who was less active and come out with more damage win, I don’t understand this,” continued Volkov, with much of the criticism being levied specifically against judge Adalaide Byrd, who had the bout 29-28 to the Frenchman.
“This is the same judge who judges boxing and MMA? I don’t understand, this state is the fighting capital of the world, I don’t know what to say… How is it possible that the same person can judge two different kinds of sports?
“I don’t understand how a person that is not professionally learned in this sport, can either not be requalified to judge this sport, or just not be f***** fired.”
Byrd already has a reputation for questionable scorecards, having famously stepped away from judging professional boxing after receiving backlash for scoring Canelo Alvarez vs GGG, 118-110 for the Mexican.
“I don’t know if she works on her [judging] skills, or she just sometimes comes to watch the fights because she likes it and give the victory wherever she likes… Maybe she liked the body of Ciryl Gane more.”
“It’s the same as in our sport, if you’re not professionally fit to fight in the UFC, it’s likely that you’re going to get fired – and it should be the same with everybody else, if you can’t professionally do your job, you shouldn’t do it.”
Volkov does have the option to appeal the decision with the NSAC; however, those appeals are rarely a success and often serve as more of a headache to the aggrieved party than a legitimate course of action.
“We for sure will do this [appeal], but I do not believe that it’ll work… If they accept this judge, who did this scorecard, they just fire her and then the decision can change.”
Volkov also revealed what Dana White told him after the result was announced, with the UFC cameras catching the CEO ranting to the Russian next to the octagon.