Israel Adesanya calls out judges for controversial split decision at UFC Vegas 74: ‘F*ck them c*nts’
Israel Adesanya was left absolutely fuming after teammate Kai Kara-France came up short on the judges’ scorecards Saturday night.
On the cusp of a bantamweight world title fight, Kara-France entered the UFC Vegas 74 headliner determined to make a statement en route to an inevitable championship opportunity. Instead, ‘Don’t Blink’ saw his opponent, Amir Albazi, leave Las Vegas with the biggest win of his career via a split decision. Fans online were seemingly split with many suggesting Albazi’s control time was the deciding factor despite Kara-France landing 56 more significant strikes throughout the 25-minute duration.
Reacting to the somewhat controversial decision, Israel Adesanya unleashed his wrath on embattled judges Chris Lee and Sal D’Amato who awarded Albazi the win with identical 48-47 scores.
“Nah bro…F*ck yous!!!” Adesanya wrote on Twitter in the first of four scathing tweets. He followed that up with another post that took aim at the two judges in question. “Fire Chris Lee & Sal Deez nuts,” Adesanya continued in a second message.
‘The Last Stylebender’ was far from done.
“I tweeted that before even seeing the scorecards because I knew them two will f*ck it up!!” Adesanya wrote in a third tweet. “How many times will they rob athletes of their moments of glory, of [sic] their money, their livelihood for their family? F*ck them c*nts, they need to expire quickly and go. Mike Bell was the only judge to score this properly, the other two deff need to disappear.”
Israel Adesanya posted a fourth, and much more tame tweet, suggesting that judges should publicly address their reasoning behind questionable scores while facing consequences for handing fights to competitors that clearly didn’t earn the victory.
“Start interviewing the judges after fights,” Adesanya wrote. “Hold them accountable for their work.”
Israel Adesanya May Be Biased, but Is He Wrong?
Of course, there is a bit of bias as Israel Adesanya and Kai Kara-France are both teammates under the City Kickboxing banner in New Zealand. ‘Stylebender’ had a similar response following the loss of teammate Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 284 in February. The Great’ went toe-to-toe with reigning lightweight champion Islam Makhachev for five rounds and in the eyes of many, did more than enough damage to secure a win over the Dagestani destroyer.
In Saturday’s main event, Amir Albazi had 6:10 of control time during the 25-minute affair but failed to do any damage aside from a very tight rear-naked choke submission attempt that Kara-France was able to work his way out of. When it comes to the top criteria, damage, ‘Don’t Blink’ was significantly ahead. The Kiwi landed 99 significant strikes compared to 43 from Albazi. Total strikes were even further apart with Kara-Frace landing 133 versus 64. Kara-France also scored two takedowns in two attempts while Albazi officially landed one out of nine. Kara France also out-landed Albazi in all five rounds.
Do you agree with Israel Adesanya’s assessment of last night’s decision?
