Derek Brunson vs. Anderson Silva didn’t go down without controversy.
The two middleweight bruisers did battle this past Saturday night (Feb. 11) inside the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY. The fight served as UFC 208’s co-main event.
When the score totals were read, Silva was given the nod with scores of 30-27, 29-28, and 29-28. Many thought Brunson deserved to win the fight, and almost all felt the 30-27 score for “The Spider” was egregious at best.
Brunson recently appeared on The MMA Hour and spoke with Ariel Helwani. He said he watched the fight and is convinced he should’ve been awarded the victory:
“I watched the fight about 20 minutes ago because I wanted to make sure when I come on here that I thoroughly watched the fight and I know what I’m saying. And man, there’s no way he won that fight. I heard fans saying, ‘oh, well he’s an older guy you didn’t do much. You should’ve pushed more.’ Like come on guys, look watch the fight, score the fight as it should be. ‘Oh he defended your takedowns,’ you don’t get points for defending takedowns.”
Brunson not only watched the bout, but he also looked at the statistics post-fight. He mentioned his ability to outstrike Silva by a significant margin in the opening round as well as the third. He also pointed out having takedowns in those rounds. Brunson believes the numbers speak for themselves.
“In the first round, 39 to eight. I hit him 39 times, he hit me eight times. I probably hit him with 12 uppercuts out of the clinch, where he normally put guys away in the Muay Thai clinch. Silva is nasty in the Muay Thai clinch. In the third round I outscored him 31 to 18. In the first and the third, I had takedowns. So you tell me who’s winning.”
