The main event at the Meta APEX on Saturday produced a stretcher and a scare. The co-main produced an argument that still has not ended. Ailin Perez beat Norma Dumont by unanimous decision at UFC Vegas 121, all three judges turning in 29-28 cards, and security had to step between them before either fighter left the cage.
Dumont was still taunting Perez as the scores were read. Perez answered with her celebration dance. Officials moved in fast, and the two were separated again on the way out.
The scorecards do not match what most people saw
Round one belonged to Perez, who landed cleanly and finished with a takedown. Round two belonged to Dumont, who got her own takedown and was the sharper striker. Round three is where this fight was decided, and it was close enough that a large share of observers had Dumont doing the little bit more.
Perez did land a hard knee to the body in the third with Dumont pinned on the fence, which is probably what the judges hung the round on. That is a defensible read. It is also the only defensible read, and there was not much else in those five minutes to separate them.
Dumont is not letting this go
The Brazilian called the decision one of the biggest absurdities she has seen in MMA and said flatly that she does not accept it. She argued that she clearly won the second round and that Perez did nothing in the third.
She has a reason to be furious beyond the result itself. This is her second consecutive loss, and at this stage of a women’s bantamweight career, back-to-back defeats push a fighter out of the title conversation entirely. A close split of the final round cost her a lot more than one night’s purse.
Perez won, and she won ugly
Let’s be honest about what Perez got here. She extended her run without producing anything close to a signature performance, and she spent her post-fight interview relitigating how Dumont had treated her during fight week rather than making a case for a bigger opponent. The bad blood was real and had been building since the two started trading shots publicly.
That is a shame, because Perez is one of the more marketable fighters in a division that badly needs marketable fighters. Argentina has a real star here. She has not yet had the night that turns her into one.
Where this should go next
The Nevada commission is not going to overturn a unanimous decision on three identical cards, and nobody should expect it to. Judges scored a coin-flip round, and coin-flip rounds get scored.
The right answer is the obvious one: run it back. Perez and Dumont dislike each other, they just fought to within a single round of a draw, and a rematch sells itself without the UFC needing to invent a storyline. Perez should welcome it, because a clean win over Dumont does more for her standing than this one ever will. Dumont should demand it, because her alternative is fighting for her roster spot instead of a ranking.
Give them 25 minutes next time and let the argument settle itself.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.