British UFC star Lerone Murphy is one of a very exclusive group still to be undefeated in the UFC, but he did almost lose his 0 in a very controversial fight.
At UFC 319 on August 16, the middleweight title will be on the line in the main event as Dricus Du Plessis looks to hand Khamzat Chimaev the first loss of his career.
However, ‘Borz’ isn’t the only undefeated fighter on the card as in the co-main event, British star Lerone Murphy takes on UFC newcomer Aaron Pico in a late notice fight.
Pico was originally set to take on Movsar Evloev in what would’ve been a featherweight number one contender fight, but Evloev withdrew from the fight just a few weeks out.
Murphy almost lost undefeated record to UFC debutant
‘The Miracle’ has been chipping away in the featherweight division for some time now, and may feel hard done by that he hasn’t been given a title shot yet.
Despite that, the 34-year-old’s performances have been relatively hit and miss and he came extremely close to losing his undefeated record when he returned to London at UFC 286, taking on Gabriel Santos.
Initially, fans questioned the booking considering it was Santos’ first fight in the promotion and Murphy was riding an impressive four fight undefeated streak.
However, early on in the fight, it became clear that maybe the matchmaking wasn’t as bad as it initially seemed as Santos brought the fight to Murphy, putting him in some extremely uncomfortable positions.
Every round played out extremely closely and by the end of it, the Brazilian debutant had come closest to finishing the fight, shocking the fanbase.
Despite that, Murphy controversially picked up the split decision win, which was disputed by a large portion of the fanbase online.
Fan reaction to the controversial scorecards
“No way Murphy won round 2, clowns!” one fan commented following the result.
“Disgusting scorecards,” another fan said.
“Horrible decision. The English judges did this last time with Paddy (Pimblett). We have to figure this out, the UFC’s reputation gets hurt by these bad judges,” a third fan commented.
Murphy went on to rebound from a questionable performance, scoring four unanimous decision wins in a row, with his last coming against Josh Emmett.