The best and worst from UFC on ESPN: Whittaker vs. Till
The final UFC show on Abu Dhabi’s ‘Fight Island’ turned out to be a memorable one.
We got a ton of fun fights up and down the card with a nice mix of finishes. The main event – while not as explosive as fans might’ve hoped – was a tremendous violent chess match. And even the stuff that was expected to be bad and/or sad wasn’t too bad at all.
Here are the best and worst moments from UFC on ESPN: Whittaker vs. Till.
#1 Best: Whittaker bounces back, while Till shows that he belongs at the top of the UFC Middleweight division
It was hard to know exactly what to expect going into the main event of last night’s UFC show. There were big questions around both men, frankly.
Robert Whittaker had been knocked out badly in his previous fight, and he’d suffered from injuries and burnout in recent years that made it easy to question quite how much he had left. Darren Till, meanwhile, had won just one fight at 185lbs – a low-output affair against Kelvin Gastelum, who was seemingly exposed recently by Jack Hermansson.
Thankfully, both men gave their all last night and we were treated to an excellent main event. The fight ended up going the distance. And while Whittaker had his hand raised, a case could definitely be made for Till winning, too.
This wasn’t the crazy war some had hoped to see, although there was a ton of violence, with both men getting dropped. ‘The Gorilla’ started the first round stronger, catching Whittaker coming in with a hard left elbow to drop him. But ‘The Reaper’ came roaring back in the second, working his opponent over with low kicks before dropping him, too.
The final three rounds were all close to call. Whittaker was the more active fighter, but I felt like Till did more damage in the final two and probably should’ve been awarded the win. However, to see Whittaker get his hand raised wasn’t a surprise and certainly wasn’t a robbery.
Overall, the fight showed that not only does Whittaker still have a lot to offer at the top of the UFC’s Middleweight division, but that Till firmly belongs in the top 10, too. What more can you ask for really?
#1 Worst: The horrible refereeing job in the Trinaldo vs. Herbert fight
UFC president Dana White loves to refer to Herb Dean as the “best referee in MMA”. But judging by his performance last night it’s hard to agree with that sentiment.
The veteran official made a huge gaffe in the final prelim of the night, a fight between Francisco Trinaldo and Jai Herbert in the UFC Lightweight division. After a back-and-forth fight that Herbert was probably winning, Trinaldo landed a clubbing left hand early in the third round that connected to the top of his opponent’s head.
Herbert appeared to be unconscious upon impact and hit the ground, stiffened up like a corpse. Trinaldo – ever the sportsman – looked ready to stop fighting. But for reasons known only to him, Dean decided not to step in, instead forcing ‘Massaranduba’ to land a couple of thoroughly pointless follow-up shots.
Quite what Dean was thinking here, we’ll never know. It was obvious to everyone else – including commentators Dan Hardy and Paul Felder, who sounded furious – that Herbert was unconscious when he hit the ground. For a veteran UFC official to miss it was quite frankly ludicrous.
Sure, everyone’s entitled to make mistakes, including Herb Dean. But when you’re refereeing a sport that could mean a mistake gets someone badly hurt, you’ve got to be more on the ball than this, sorry.