Yana Kunitskaya wasn’t about to take associate Thiago Santos’s unanimous resolution defeat to Aleksandar Rakic mendacity down, with the Russian girls’s bantamweight star venting her disgust on social media on the judges’ scoring.
Former gentle heavyweight title challenger Santos hoped for a return to the win column after back-to-back defeats as he met Austria’s Rakic in Las Vegas on Saturday night time.
The competition had been tipped as a showdown between two heavy-hitters, however ultimately performed out as a cautious tactical battle with out the fireworks many had hoped for.
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Rakic was for essentially the most half in a position to hold Santos at a distance, stopping the Brazilian from unloading the well-known energy which has introduced him 15 stoppage wins from TKO/KOs in his 30-fight profession.
Maybe sensing he was taking a threat by going to the playing cards, Santos injected extra urgency into his work within the final of the three rounds, tagging Rakic with a number of headkicks though failing to land a decisive strike on the 29-year-old.
When it did go to the judges, the Austrian was given a unanimous resolution, 30-27, 29-28 and 29-28, as he picked up a second consecutive win and a sixth in his seven fights within the UFC octagon, additional pushing himself into the title dialog at 205lbs.
It was a case of contrasting fortunes for the 37-year-old Santos, ranked quantity two among the many gentle heavyweight contenders earlier than Saturday night time however now going through a slip down the rankings.
The defeat for ‘Marreta’ was his third in a row, after a valiant effort in world title showdown with Jon Jones in July of 2019 after which a submission defeat to Glover Teixeira final November.
However fiancée Kunitskaya, who was in Santos’s nook on the UFC Apex on Saturday night time, was not in regards to the settle for the newest defeat with a protest.
Taking to Instagram, she shared the combat stats – including the message “Simply gonna depart it right here” and the hashtag #bullsh*t.
The Russian expressed comparable sentiments on Twitter, writing “theft” with a thumbs-down emoji together with the identical set of numbers.
The figures gave some credence to Kunitskaya’s gripes, together with her man outstriking his rival total – touchdown 61 photographs to 50 – and in addition touchdown extra important strikes – 49 to Rakic’s 36.
Nevertheless, the stats don’t all the time inform the entire story, and followers took to the replies to dispute the Russian’s claims.
“Rakic received, no excuses,” wrote one particular person. “I believed Rakic received too, Santos had a whole lot of bother closing the space,” added one other.
Rakic himself stated that he had executed his pre-fight recreation plan in opposition to the heavy-hitting Brazilian.
“The sport plan in opposition to Thiago was to maintain the space, to punch from outdoors, punch from the space, however right here within the APEX, the cage is a bit of bit smaller, so it’s tougher to maintain the space,” he stated.
“Closing the space may be very, very quick. We all know Thiago is harmful within the quick distance along with his punches, along with his wild punches.
“He has like hammers in each fingers, so I wanted to concentrate on this. I saved it easy. I picked him aside and received all three rounds by domination,” added the Austrian, who put himself in robust rivalry for a number-one contender bout at 205lbs.
Santos and Kunitskaya have been left to lick their wounds, though no less than the Russian star received on her earlier look within the octagon, on that event seeing a choice go her manner as she beat Ketlen Vieira at UFC Struggle Evening 185 in February.
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