Controversial decisions like Sean O'Malley vs. Petr Yan can be avoided if retired fighters become judges, says Chris Gutierrez (Exclusive)
UFC bantamweight Chris Gutierrez believes he has an antidote to bad judging in the aftermath of the controversial Sean O'Malley vs. Petr Yan fight.
Gutierrez revealed that he was among the many who had Yan beating O'Malley on his personal scorecard. However, he stressed that MMA judges can't always be relied upon for sound and dependable scoring.
So how would Gutierrez fix the system if things were up to him? The 135-pound stalwart believes involving retired fighters could be the way to go. During an interview with James Lynch of Sportskeeda MMA, Gutierrez said:
"When fighters retire, I think we need more of them to be judges because these judges out here, they're either just boxing judges or they're just judges that take a class. They don't know nothing. They've never been in a fight a day in their life and they're ultimately taking the fight away from these fighters."
Check out our exclusive interview with Chris Gutierrez:
Gutierrez will be in action in the upcoming UFC 281 pay-per-view at the Madison Square Garden in New York City. He will take on former UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar in what is expected to be the biggest fight of his career.
Chris Gutierrez talks about fathers having "sh*t rights" in the USA
Chris Gutierrez pivoted from commenting on an MMA-related issue to a more serious one.
The 31-year-old gave an update on his ongoing pursuit to have a relationship with his son. This comes after Gutierrez lost a custody battle to his ex-girlfriend in 2018. Since then, he has been disallowed from seeing his own son.
Due to his circumstances, Gutierrez said he realized that fathers have very few rights under the United States constitution. He told Sportskeeda MMA:
"Fathers don't have sh*t rights in this f***ing country, man. Like, yeah, I don't know, man. It's been three and a half years and I've seen my son... He lives an hour away and I'm not able to see him. I don't know anything about my son and you know it's crazy."
Watch Chris Gutierrez's interview below:
Last year, Gutierrez spoke about his situation following his UFC 258 win. He also expressed his hopes for the company to help out in his legal battle, but has seemingly made no progress since.