There was some controversy in the co-main event of UFC 163 last night as Phil Davis emerged with a unanimous decision victory despite many believing that Lyoto Machida had done just enough to get his hand raised.
Machida was clearly stunned when the verdict was announced to a chorus of boo’s from the passionate Brazilian crowd, and he’s now calling for an immediate rematch.
“If the UFC can, I would like to rematch Phil Davis because I want to prove that I can beat him,” Machida told MMAfighting.com’s Ariel Helwani post-fight, also admitting that has “unhappy” and in a “state of shock” at having picked up what goes down as only the fourth loss of his career.
Machida seems confident that the UFC will give him the opportunity to fight Davis again, but that remains to be seen.
One thing’s for sure though, Machida is not the only one who was caught off-guard by the judges decision.
“Wow!!! I had Machida winning all 3 rds but that’s what happens when u leave it up to the judges!” Dana white exclaimed on Twitter after the bout.
Meanwhile, the respected FightMetric website’s statistical anaylsis of the fight also indicated that Machida should have won all three rounds after landing more significant strikes throughout the bout.
Even Phil Davis didn’t exactly sound certain post-fight that he should have got the nod, admitting that even his own corner had told hiim he was two rounds down going into the third, but as you might expect, ‘Mr Wonderful’ is happy to abide by the judges ruling.
“Man, I knew it was super close, I knew we both got takedowns in the second round, so I knew it was just a close fight the entire time,” Davis tells Ariel Helwani. “I trust the judges – I would have accepted defeat had they chose that I lost and that’s just the way the games played.”
That being said, Davis wasn’t looking to fight Machida for a second time, instead suggesting that since he’d been Machida who was ranked as the light-heavyweight division’s No.1 contender he should be the next to fight for the light-heavyweight title against the winner of the forthcoming Jon Jones Vs Alexander Gustafsson fight.
In all fairness this wasn’t the kind of performance that was going to get people clamoring for either Davis or Machida tile shot, and in fact post-fight the UFC’s Marshall Zelaznik was suggesting that if Glover Teixeira wins his next fight impressively then he’s likely to move into pole-position instead.
