Ian Machado Garry isn’t quite sure how his fight last weekend with Geoff Neal was a split decision.
The Dubliner extended his unbeaten UFC run to seven fights (14-0 overall) with a decision win over the top-ten ranked Geoff Neal on the main card of UFC 298 in Anaheim, California on Saturday night — but Machado Garry doesn’t quite believe that the judges’ appraisal of the fight matches his output in the cage.
Two judges saw the fight for Machado Garry (30-27, 29-28) but a third scored all three rounds for Neal — and speaking to Ariel Helwani on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour via MMA Fighting, he said that he couldn’t see a case for anything other than a unanimous verdict from cageside.
“I even went over to the commentators, like I hate giving sh*t to the judges, because it’s exactly like that one judge — two could have had that view,” he said. “I don’t see how. Statistically, I dominated in the significant strikes. Geoff had more clinch time and control against the cage, but did absolutely nothing with it. Tried to take me down, couldn’t. I was dominant in the head fight and the hand battle. I just sat there going, ‘How the hell on earth do you score that 30-27?’”
Machado Garry added that he could accept a score of 29-28 but questioned, given how the statistics showed him having a higher volume of output, how anyone could have scored the fight against him.
“Geoff Neal, like if you want to give him a round, I could understand that, if you wanted to say 29-28 unanimous decision. They weren’t the easiest rounds to score from a clear point of view of Ian definitely dominated that round. But when it comes to leading the dance, when it comes to output, when it comes to control of the positions we were in, I feel like I dominated them in every facet of the game.
“When two fighters fight, both fighters know who won,” Machado Garry added. “Geoff can put his hands up in that octagon or not and then try to show the world that he thinks he won. But in his heart, he knows. In his heart, I know he knows, because I outworked him, I outpaced him. When he wanted to have success, he didn’t.
“So I know he knew he lost that fight. If you wanted to give him the one round, fine, I have no issue with that. But don’t tell me that that wasn’t a unanimous decision. This is why we don’t leave it in the hands of the judges.”
