UFC President Dana White has spoken out after Jon Jones’ controversial win at UFC 247, and says officiating is something the UFC needs to work on.
Jones faced Dominick Reyes in Houston on February 8, taking the victory by unanimous decision to defend his light heavyweight title.
But the result was met with widespread criticism, with many believing Reyes had the edge throughout the fight.
Questionable
A large portion of the crowd resorted to booing when the result was announced, while personalities such as Joe Rogan came out and slammed officials.
Under particularly heavy fire was Joe Solis, who scored the fight 49-46 in Jones’ favour.
And Dana White has now had his say on the controversial decision, and says the scoring on the night was ‘all over the place’.
Speaking at the post-fight press conference, White addressed the situation.
“The scoring was all over the map,” White said.
“Joe Silva—the former matchmaker here—had it a draw.”
“Kevin Iole hit me up and he had Jones 3-to-2.”
“Going into the last round I had Dominick Reyes 3-to-1 going into the last round.”
“My kids are terrorizing me that ‘the fix is in’ and ‘how can this happen, dad? Reyes won that fight’ and the list goes on and on of people that are reaching out to me.”
“People have it all over the place.”
Work To Do
White says issues with officiating is something that needs to be recognised and worked on.
He continued: “As far as the judging and the reffing tonight, do I think it was perfect?”
“I do not.”
“I think that we need to do some work down here.”
The UFC boss says better education is needed to ensure controversial results aren’t a regular occurrence, but reiterates that no one is perfect and mistakes are inevitable.
“First of all, the powers that be and the commission have to realize that there were mistakes made and these things are gonna happen,” White continued.
“Nothing’s perfect, no commission is perfect, no state is perfect.”
“It’s just something we have to work on.”
“But in the Reyes fight, like I said, it was so all over the map.”
Positives
Despite the result being overshadowed the questionable officiating, White believes there are positives to be taken from the night, and says a rematch between Jones and Reyes could be on the cards.
“Do I think that he deserves a rematch? Sure, he does.” White said.
“But we’ll see what happens.”
“Here’s the other thing,”
“Say what you want about Jon Jones,”
“Jon Jones win fights.”
“If and when these two fight again, it’ll be even better than tonight.
“So that’s the positive out of what we saw here this evening.”
“No matter what side of the fence you sit on.”
(Featured image source: Youtube/ ESPN and Instagram/ Jon Jones)