Paul Hughes' coach 'confused and disappointed,' says PFL Dubai controversies 'just don’t add up'

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The reaction to Usman Nurmagomedov’s unanimous decision win over Paul Hughes in their championship rematch has been the subject of scrutiny ever since it was read aloud Friday at PFL Dubai.

Nurmagomedov won a polarizing majority decision over Hughes when they first fought in January, with many believing the Irishman had done enough to have his hand raised. The rematch was every bit as competitive as the first, dividing opinion once again as to the victor after 25 minutes of action.

The latest controversy came on the back of Friday's decision being declared with one of the judges, Bryan Miner, scoring the contest with a inexplicable 50-45 scorecard for Nurmagomedov. The other two judges, Hadi Ali and Darryl Ransom, scored it 49-46 and 48-47 for Nurmagomedov, respectively.

Speaking exclusively to Uncrowned in the days following the rematch, Fight Academy Ireland head coach Liam Shannon remained perplexed by what took place on Friday night in Dubai.

“We’re confused and disappointed, and a little bit shocked to be honest,” Shannon acknowledged.

“We don’t know how they’ve come away with scorecards like that. The general consensus seemed to be that it was two rounds each going into the fifth, and based on the scorecards, two of the judges had Paul winning the fifth. I think he won the fight and I think most people think he had an argument to win the fight; 48-47 either way I can understand, but some of the scorecards from that fight just don’t add up.”

Referee

Referee Keith Petersen’s performance has been scrutinized in the aftermath of the bout. He failed to deduct a point from Nurmagomedov despite Hughes claiming to be hit low with illegal blows on three occasions. The Russian also appeared to head-butt Hughes between rounds in front of the referee.

When Shannon and fellow FAI coach Patrick McAlister complained to Petersen during the contest, they were told the shots were “accidental,” which Shannon believes should not preclude a penalty from being incurred.

“The groin shots were continuous even if they were accidental, and our argument is that they had an impact on the fight,” Shannon said.

“Not only are we watching these fouls happening over and over again, there was a head-butt between the rounds that was unpunished — you’d get sent off for that in a football match. From our point of view, Usman was consistently breaking the rules. The referee was there to enforce the rules, and he didn’t do that.

“When you add to that the confusion around the scorecards, it makes for a very confusing situation,” he added. “It’s difficult to understand what the judges and the referee were thinking during this fight.”

Shannon had already taken exception to Petersen’s officiating earlier in the night when he returned a 30-26 scorecard against another FAI fighter, John Mitchell, in his meeting with Khabib Nurmagomedov-coached prospect Makkasharip Zaynukov.

“I was totally flabbergasted when they read out John Mitchell’s scorecard. Honestly, it only got worse when I saw the scorecards I thought John won every round pretty clearly and then I see Keith Petersen has given a 10-8 round to his opponent for one of them,” he said.

“His opponent was only successful with one takedown in six attempts with 20 seconds left in the fight. From my point of view, John was landing damaging shots, he was marching his opponent down. When those scorecards were read out, I had a feeling it was going to be a long night at the office.”

Transparency

In the immediate aftermath of the outrage surrounding the rematch’s scoring on Friday, there was a substantial appetite for the scorecards — particularly the 50-45 — to be made public.

However, PFL erroneously posted the scorecards on two occasions before the real scores were published via a photograph of a laptop screen, with the scorecards being shown within a Microsoft Excel document.

Shannon remarked that it only added to contention that already existed with the scorecards and the referee.

“I think it just adds to the confusion," he said. "After you’ve cornered someone in a fight that’s been judged like that and refereed like that, in the heat of the moment you can’t help but wonder if there’s something going on backstage that we don’t know about. It nearly seemed like they were scrambling to rescue the situation because there was so much backlash online.

“PFL is one of the biggest organizations in the sport. You’d expect that they would want to get everything out there as quickly as possible to show the public that this was clean cut. Everything that happened with that fight was the opposite of that. Nothing felt straightforward on the night.”

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Shannon was inundated with people telling him pre-fight that the only way they could win Friday's rematch was to knock Nurmagomedov out. Although he dismissed that chatter at the time, he believes those who questioned whether Nurmagomedov and Hughes were meeting on a level playing field will feel they have been proven right by what they witnessed over the weekend in Dubai.

“This is something you hear a lot about in boxing — when you’re fighting a champion away from home, you have to stop him to win. We went out of our way to tell people that wasn’t the case, even though it was constantly said to us in the lead-up to this fight on the back of what happened in their first fight," he said. "I think a lot of those people will come away from this fight and feel like they’ve been proved right."