Cory Sandhagen has fighting words for the UFC judge who scored for Marlon Vera (Exclusive)
Cory Sandhagen's UFC San Antonio main-event clash against Marlon Vera on March 25 was marred by a judging controversy.
Sandhagen displayed a previously unseen grappling skillset and exploited his evident reach advantage to emphatically outclass 'Chito' over the course of five rounds. However, one of the judges, Joel Odeja, shockingly scored the bout in favor of Vera, making it a split decision win for 'The Sandman'.
Per @MMADecisions, Joel Ojeda has handed in completed scorecards for just four UFC bouts (including Sandhagen vs. Vera)
I'm all for giving less experienced, regional judges opportunities to get reps and judge UFC events, but for main events, experience is way too important. twitter.com/jedigoodman/st…
Sandhagen admittedly couldn't make much sense of Odeja's scoring in the UFC San Antonio main-event. The bantamweight contender believes even a personal vendetta wouldn't justify Odeja scoring the fifth round for Vera. The 30-year-old told James Lynch in an exclusive interview with Sportskeeda MMA:
"I don't even know what to make of it, man. I mean what can you say...It's unreal to me. So when I thought about it and I of course rewatched the fight. And I was thinking man, 'If you really really hated me. If I walked by you, kicked you dog earlier that day, or like pushed you in the snow or in the mud or something, I could see how you would maybe give Chito [rounds] three and four. But to give him round 5 even, is just ridiculous to me."
Catch Cory Sandhagen's comments below:
Cory Sandhagen suggests changes to solve UFC judging controversy
Cory Sandhagen vs. Marlon Vera was the fourth-ever UFC assignment for Texas judge Joel Odeja, who received heavy criticism for his judgment. This is the latest addition to a long list of botched-up UFC judgments in recent times which even led welterweight contender Gilbert Burns to suggest an FBI probe.
Sandhagen himself also suggested some changes to end the curse of controversial judging forever. While 'The Sandman' suggested steps like open scoring and more judges, he believes the formation of a 'universal commission' should precede them all. The 30-year-old recently said on The MMA Hour:
"Okay so yeah the first thing that you have to do immediately you have to make universal commission... then from there you can start building universal rules and regulations and criteria or adding two judges that aren’t cage side and another in a completely different room and because that right there would make some pretty interesting things happen right there so. or more open scoring or whatever but there 100 percent has to be a universal commission."
Catch Cory Sandhagen's comments below: