Dan Hooker believes the judges made the wrong decision in Saturday night’s featherweight main event.
Josh Emmet edged out a split decision victory over Calvin Kattar on two of the judges’ scorecards after five close rounds at UFC Fight Night: Austin.
“For me, I had it for Kattar” Hooker informed John Hyon Ko on The AllStar’s MMA Live post-event show.
“I had Kattar with the jab, Kattar with the right, Kattar [was] hurting him – even though he’s moving backwards. What do you want a guy to do there, stand there and get hit?”
That jab, the ‘Hangman’ believes, is one of the factors that should have earned Kattar the nod.
“If you had to peg or pencil any one thing down as the most dominant from that fight, for me, it would have to be Calvin Kattar’s jab – which just could not miss.”
“…you could see the damage that was accumulating on Emmett’s face by the end of the fight.”
The community that voted on the Verdict global score card seemed to agree.
By Hooker’s count, the ‘Boston Finisher’ was up at least one round, possibly two by the time the final horn sounded. He admitted it was close, and he’d have to watch it over to make a proper assessment – but the visuals, the Kiwi insisted, told the story.
“Kattar was never hurt or wobbled; whereas Emmett was hurt and wobbled – and also, like, just an accumulation of damage… The more effective damage was coming from Kattar.”
When the conversation broached the subject of using live stats as an indicator for official scoring, the 33-fight veteran likened the process to “pissing in the wind.”
“I don’t know if, like, a UFC intern or something is the guy that gets that job, or the guy that does that job just has never done a kickboxing class,“ Hooker laughed. Having judged bouts himself, he understands the difficulty behind tallying a scorecard and dismissed the notion of an all-out robbery.
“They’re watching one angle, live, and they have to make a split-second decision.”
“Say like the one or two big moments in that fight, the judge is just staring at the back of someone’s head, how does he score that?”
As a whole, Hooker was impressed with each contender’s performance. He was truly delighted in the ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ the pair had seemingly agreed to – keeping the action on the feet for the majority of the fight.
“It’s like they had an unspoken agreement that they were just gonna box,” he japed.
“Boxing with a couple of elbows and a couple of shots thrown in there – but besides the front kicks, that was really all the feet that were really coming off the ground in that one.”
“It was just a cool fight.”
