Jared Cannonier and Sean Strickland didn’t exactly send 2022 off with a bang.
In the final UFC main event of the year, Cannonier narrowly won a split decision over Sean Strickland after five rounds of technical—and occasionally uneventful—striking. The back-and-forth contest produced one of the stranger sets of scorecards you’ll see, with two judges scoring the fight 49-46 for Cannonier and the other 49-46 for Strickland.
While the middleweight bout was light in drama, that didn’t mean there wasn’t plenty for fighters to talk about, particularly in regards to the dearth of meaningful exchanges and the peculiar scoring.
Ode’ Osbourne offered Sean Strickland some tough love, writing, “Love Sean, but you can’t act like a lion and fight like a cat.”
Fellow middleweight contender Derek Brunson called the scorecards “crazy” and wondered if MMA needs “a real scoring system.”
Check out more reactions from the MMA community here.
Comedy in judging . 49-46 one person , 49-46 other person . Too subjective and opinionated. Can we get a real scoring system … #UFCVegas66
— Derek Brunson (@DerekBrunson) December 18, 2022
Good fight by both I got Cannonier but I could see judges going either way.
— Funky (@Benaskren) December 18, 2022
Strickland is pissed, but he should’ve showed more urgency. 49-46 going opposite ways, weird cards again. @VerdictMMA what you got?
— Funky (@Benaskren) December 18, 2022
Crazy score cards ♂️
— Gregory “Robocop” Rodrigues (@gregory_mma) December 18, 2022