UFC 273 Re-Watch: Aljamain Sterling vs. Petr Yan II
Taking a second look at Saturday's bantamweight title unification bout in order to break down the scoring and better explain the final result
You know I love a close fight and the opportunity to rewatch a battle for a second time, with the sound off and no distractions, so when Aljamain Sterling and Petr Yan locked horns in a tight, competitive battle on Saturday night with the bantamweight title hanging in the balance, you knew I was going to be here this morning watching it back.
Letâs get a few things established, as always, right off the hop:
no one got robbed here; this was an ultra-close fight that came down to one round, and maybe the scoring of another
being a judge is a freakishly difficult task and I challenge anyone that thinks otherwise to go take a licensed judging course and see for themselves
yes, I have taken and passed one of these courses (John McCarthyâs COMMAND), so I do have a little better understanding of what judges are supposed to be looking for and how to score these fights than most
we donât all have to agree all the time; sometimes we just see things differently, and in a subjective venture like judging, youâre going to get split decisions and dissenting opinions from time-to-time
Before we get to the re-watch, hereâs the official scorecard for Sterling-Yan II from Saturday night:
Watching the fight live, I gave Round 1 to Yan and scored Round 2 10-8 for Sterling, ending up at a 47-47 draw after 25 minutes, with Sterling winning Round 3, and Yan winning the final two frames, all with 10-9 scores.
Clearly, Round 1 was the crucial round of this fight, but I also want to spend a little more time with Round 2 as well, figuring out why I leaned 10-8 on first blush, why not of the officials at cageside went that route, and how I feel about it now, watching it back on Monday morning with nothing to distract me.
Iâm not going to go through the final three rounds because everyone â you, me, the judges, everyone â agrees with how they went and were scored, so weâve only got 10 minutes of tape to really break down here, so letâs get to it.
Round 1
5:00-4:00: Body kick for Aljo right out of the chute. Misses with another. Yan stalking, but yet to throw anything yet. Low outside kick for Sterling; itâs a range finder, not a damaging blow. Another low outside kick for Sterling. Nearly a minute in and Yan still hasnât thrown anything. Takedown attempt from Sterling denied by Yan, who sprawls well and swings with a wild left hook on the way up, missing by a country mile. Body kick from Yan is parried away. Sterling looks for a low outside kick, but Yan isnât there.
4:00-3:00: High kick from the orthodox stance from Sterling gets brushed aside. Body kick from the same stance doesnât rate. Body kick again, but this time the toes touch Yanâs midsection. Right hand from Sterling finds a home, not quite flush, but it connects. Lead right jab for Yan connects. Yan shifts stances and throws a straight right, but nothing doing. Left kick to the body for Sterling, with Yan trying to catch the leg and swinging wildly in return. Another left body kick lands for Sterling, who misses with low outside kick right after.
3:00-2:00: Reaching right hand from orthodox is short for Sterling, who switches to southpaw with the punch. Front kick to the midsection for Sterling as Yan continues trying to walk him down and pin him in against the fence. Reaching left hook from Yan that is more of a disguise for the left body kick coming a fraction behind it that lands. Reaching right hand touches Yanâs chin. Front kick to the belly for Sterling. Both men reach forward to throw, but neither really pulls the trigger as they kind of just slide passed each other. Sterling reaches forward with a right hand, but nothing doing.
2:00-1:00: Pawing right hook for Sterling, low outside kick for Yan. Stepping in one-two for Yan from southpaw pushes Sterling back and forces him to circle out. Right body kick from Sterling checked by Yan. Straight left for Yan lands, but the two behind it miss and he falls to a knee because heâs over-extending. He misses wildly with a left hook as he gets back to his feet as well. Sterling presses forward, but misses with two strike attempts, getting pushed out of the way by Yan, who is still a little off balance. Sterling throws a âwarmup left hookâ that is parried because it had no force on it. Sterling looking to work the jab, but heâs not committing to it. Yan misses with a right hook, Sterling with a soft jab to the ribs, Yan with a left hook over the top. Right body kick for Sterling scores.
1:00-0:00: Yan reaches with consecutive left hooks, both of which are caught on the gloves. Toes to the belly from Sterling. Lead right elbow to the forehead by Sterling causes Yan to back up a couple steps. Yan bails on a high kick 60% of the way through and reaches with a hook, but Sterling circles out. Jab for Sterling from southpaw glances. Two pawing shots from Sterling land, but more importantly interrupt Yanâs rhythm. Sterling in on a single, Yan lands an uppercut in tight, pulls his leg out, and connects with a left hand on the break. Sterling with a kick to the arms right at the horn.
Score: 10-9 Sterling
Analysis: Watching it a second time without the commentary and fresh to start the day, itâs clear this is a Sterling round. There are long stretches where Yan doesnât throw anything, and what I think led me (and many others) to score it for Yan initially is simply the way Sterling reacts and hustles to reset after every brief interaction between the two where the Russian either lands or comes close to landing. There is an urgency to it that tricks you into thinking Yan connected with something, but really, Sterling is just keen on avoiding any kind of close-quarters engagement.
The body work â particularly the kicks â from Sterling is great, and he did well to interrupt Yanâs rhythm a couple times, pawing with his hands to occupy his opponent and keep him from firing off laser beams. This was actually a really educated five minutes from Sterling.
Round 2
5:00-4:00: Outside low kick to start for Sterling. Again, but it misses. They each attempt to kick â Sterling to the body from southpaw, Yan inside low from orthodox â and they get a little tangled up. Yan looks for a left, but nothing there. Front kick offered by Sterling and blocked by Yan. Good stance-switching right hand from Sterling. Reaching right to the body from Sterling. Again. Right body kick from Sterling. Sterling feints a level change and Yan bites hard. Body kick from Yan. Stomp to the knee from Yan. Hand fighting and a kick up the middle that doesnât connect from Sterling. Level change from Sterling and Yan stuffs it. Sterling with an uppercut in tight; Yan with a left hook on the break.
4:00-3:00: Yan presses forward and Sterling looks for a single, collecting the leg. Yan tries to throw punches while defending and gets spun off balance as he pulls his leg free, causing him to spill to the canvas, and Sterling is in hot pursuit. Sterling into three-quarter mount instantly along the fence, then into full mount, and Yan gives up his back. Hooks in, Yan works to get out of being flattened out on the canvas, accepting Sterling on his back while starting to fight the hands. Body triangle is locked in on the top side. Mostly hand-fighting for the rest of the minute, with Sterling landing one good, hard shot to the midsection.
3:00-2:00: Two good hard shots from Sterling. And two more. Yanâs trying to throw shots over his shoulder, but there is nothing on them. Lots of hand-fighting and Sterling working to manipulate Yanâs body position.
2:00-1:00: Right hand to the midsection from Sterling. Two lefts to the head, forcing Yan to cover up. One to the body, one to the head, and now a right as well. Yan almost goes belly-down for a second and Sterling looks for the choke, but Yan defends well. Three-quarter mount turns into Yan belly-down and Sterling attacking with punches. Nine hard shots to the head from Sterling, plus a few more shorter, weaker hammerfists as heâs in full mount with Yan on his side.
1:00-0:00: Three more hard right hands from Sterling as Yan rolls him back onto his back. Two good body shots from Sterling. Seven or eight more sharp punches from Sterling before the close of the round.
Score: 10-9 Sterling, but with objections.
Analysis: So, I fully understand why everyone â judges and fellow home judges alike â scored this 10-9 and itâs because the third D (damage) in the Three Ds (Dominance, Duration, Damage) wasnât really present.
I have two points Iâd like to make about this.
First, someone being locked on your back for four minutes of a five-minute round is complete domination and clearly ticks the duration box, but to then say, âWell, there wasnât enough damageâ feels like youâre penalizing a fighter, in this case Sterling, for being a grappler, as opposed to looking to strike. He wins every second of the final four minutes and out-lands Yan 17-4 in terms of significant strikes while trying to find points of entry on submission looks against a guy that is in all-out defend mode, and the argument against him earning a 10-8 score is that he didnât do enough damage.
It just doesnât feel right to me. He landed some clean, hard shots, especially when he flattened Yan out during the fourth minute of the round, but heâs also a grappler â heâs not necessarily looking to pound out a finish, so why does he get penalized for not punching Yan enough? Itâs another case of the scoring criteria being skewed towards strikers, and in particularly power-punching strikers, because damage carries such disproportional weight in scoring rounds, even when itâs contested on the canvas.
My second objection is one that we talk about regularly when criticizing the 10-point must system, and itâs that Round 1 and Round 2 each being scored 10-9 doesnât feel right when you see the stark differences between the two.
The first is a tentative, close frame where neither guy really committed to throwing too much, with Sterling edging out Yan thanks to that one nice elbow and a couple quality body kicks. The second was a one-sided affair where the New York native dominated on the canvas, but theyâre scored the same because he didnât break from what he does best and uncork a ton of ground-and-pound trying to chase down a finish that â letâs be honest â he probably knew he wasnât going to get.
Scoring the second 10-8 for Sterling eliminates this feeling â this uneasiness with the first and second earning the same score while being drastically different â but few went there because there wasnât a pronounced amount of damage present, which I would argue, in that situation, shouldnât have to be there for Sterling to get a 10-8.
I know that just makes things more subjective and potentially cloudier, but watching those two rounds back right now, and hearing that no one scored it 10-8 in the moment, having every round carrying the same 10-9 score just doesnât feel right.
Overall, Sterling wins the first two rounds and the fight, and in watching it back, I donât really know how you can score it any other way that three rounds-to-two for Sterling.
If you want to argue for Yan winning the first, I urge you to read the scoring criteria, check out my guy Sean Sheehanâs terrific breakdown of the judging criteria, and to try watching the fights with the sound muted and no distractions; itâs wild how much of a difference those things make.