Edson Barboza to appeal controversial loss against Paul Felder at UFC 242

Paul Felder may have avenged his four year old loss against Edson Barboza, but the camp of the latter isn’t happy with how the fight was scored.

Following 15 minutes of relentless fighting, the result went to the judges scorecard. And even they had a hard time deciding which way to turn to. Howie Booth scored the fight 30-27 in favor of Barboza. That, however, was the only scorecard that declared Barboza the winner. Judge Maria Makemutova scored the contest 30-27 for Felder, while David Lethaby saw it 29-28 to declare “The Irish Dragon” victorious via split decision.

Here is the Paul Felder vs. Edson Barboza scorecard for those curious #UFC242 pic.twitter.com/lAwRaQHS4c
— Damon Martin (@DamonMartin) September 7, 2019

“We think that the fight was judged inaccurately,” Barboza’s manager Alex Davis told MMA Fighting. “The fact that one judge gave it 30-27 Junior and one have it 30-27 Felder is a big indicator of their confusion. Our perception—and to everyone we spoke with, everyone in the arena, every journalist and media—the fight was 29-28 for Junior, who won the first two rounds.”

Barboza’s manager Alex Davis reached out to Marc Ratner, the UFC senior vice president of regulatory affairs, asking how to proceed to request an official review of the judges’ decision, as the PPV event was held in Abu Dhabi.

Davis isn’t very much interested in overturning the decision. He, however, has an issue with the judge who scored it 30-27 in favor of his client. Despite the low possibility of the result getting overturned, the manager wants that “mistakes” like this should be reviewed.

“We can’t let this happen,” Davis said. “These fighters put a lot of effort and invest their time to get up there to do what they do so we have judges making these type of mistakes and not being reviewed.

“We think Junior won two rounds to one, but we wouldn’t complain if it was 29-28 Felder. Nothing against Paul Felder, he’s a great fighter, a great person, his whole team, but I think Junior did a great fight and we’ll contest this.”