John McCarthy, former MMA referee, has weighed in on last weekends UFC Vegas 55 main event result.
UFC Vegas 55 took place on Saturday May 21st, 2022 inside the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, Nevada.
It was Holly Holm (14-6 MMA) vs Ketlen Vieira (13-2 MMA) in the woman’s bantamweight main event. The outcome was Vieira defeating Holm via a close split decision. Many fans and media believe Holm’s was robbed.
Vieira was awarded her second straight victory, both coming against former division title holders. Vieira previously defeated Miesha Tate (19-8 MMA) in November of 2021.
John McCarthy has spoken about the match on his ‘Weighing In’ podcast and does not believe Holly was robbed (h/t MMAJunkie):
“I don’t know what she’s gonna do. I know she’s very upset, she believes she won that fight, and I can understand why she believes she won the fight, but I don’t think it was a robbery. I don’t think it was the greatest performance by Ketlen Vieira, either, but you’ve got to look at all these elements and figure out where you’re at, and both have things that they’re gonna have to figure out. ‘I’ve gotta stop this from happening and if I don’t, it’s not gonna be good in my next matchup.’
Continuing McCarthy said:
”I thought (Holm) won. I gave it to her 3-2. She won the first round. She lost the second and third, I believe. I think I gave her the fourth and the fifth.”
It was Round 3 of the UFC Vegas 55 main event where the judges disagreed with the scoring, two judges gave the round to Vieira and the other judge gave it to Holm. McCarthy believes the ex-UFC bantamweight champion, Holm, while improving on her wresting is starting to slow down saying:
“She still has the same output as far as all that movement, and she moves a lot, and she’s got a lot of lateral movement. The one thing I saw that’s a difference is when she came in with her rushes and there was no snap in her shots. It was more of the push and then her head was still centerline, and that’s why Ketlen was able to counter her the way she did and hit her with those right hands that she kept getting blasted by, and her head was right on the centerline. She never changed it, and it’s a difference in her fighting style. …”
“She’s been phenomenal, but you can see that she is slowing down little bits, and those little bits make big differences because you got that center line, and there’s little movements left and right that allow something to glance and slide by, and you’ll see it, and you’ll do that movement, and that movement is just a fraction of a second slower than it was before and instead of it glancing and sliding by, it’s popping you, and that’s what’s happening now.”
Do you agree with John McCarthy’s take on what went down between Holm and Vieira at UFC Vegas 55?