It appears there may be some behind-the-scenes fallout from the Bellator 289 main event.
Raufeon Stots (19-1 MMA, 7-0 BMMA) beat Danny Sabatello (13-2 MMA, 3-1 BMMA) with a split decision this past Friday at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn. Stots went into the fight as the interim bantamweight champion and retained that belt with the win. He also moved on to the $1 million final of Bellator’s 135-pound grand prix tournament.
Stots’ win might not have been a huge surprise on paper – he was the betting favorite. But the wide disparity of scores had just about every observer scratching their heads. Stots got 48-47 scores from judges Eric Colon and Bryan Miner. But judge Doug Crosby gave the fight to Sabatello – and gave him all five rounds for a 50-45 score.
And that 50-45 score apparently was enough to trigger Mike Mazzulli, the commission director for the Mohegan Tribe Department of Athletic Regulations, to schedule a review of the fight with all three judges. The news first was reported by MMA Fighting.
“After reviewing the fight, three rounds of the five rounds were extremely close and the other two were marginally close rounds,” Mazzulli said, according to the report. “One judge had Sabatello winning all five rounds, which is controversial. But ultimately Stots won the decision, which is the correct result. In an effort to make this a learning moment, I have informed all three judges we will be reviewing the fight together.
“This is a very serious situation. The Mohegan Tribe Athletic Department always looks out for the best interests of all fighters. In the past the Mohegan Tribe Athletic Department has sanctioned officials that are not performing to the level that is required. Such sanctions, when they occur, are not made public.”
After he judged the Bellator 289 main event Friday, Crosby flew across the country Saturday and was one of the judges for Paddy Pimblett’s controversial unanimous decision win over Jared Gordon in the UFC 282 co-main event in Las Vegas. In that fight, all three judges scored the bout for Pimblett – much to the disbelief of the majority of observers, some of whom have said Pimblett’s win not only was the biggest robbery of 2022, but could be the most unjust decision in UFC history.
After Bellator 289, Sabatello was calm, but livid at the scoring and said he didn’t understand how he could get a 50-45 score and win all five rounds, but still lose the fight. Conversely, Stots didn’t understand how Crosby gave Sabatello all five rounds. And Bellator president Scott Coker, too, was perplexed by Crosby’s scorecard.
The morning after Bellator 289, MMADecisions.com reported on Twitter that the 50-45 scorecard for Sabatello was the first time in the site’s lengthy history of tracking fights that the loser of a bout got a 50-45 score in his favor.
MMA Decisions highlights when individual judges’ scores are in the minority in a fight. So far in 2022, Crosby has been a part of 56 decisions in fights under the Bellator, UFC and PFL banners. He has been the dissenting opinion of three judges in 12.5 percent of those fights. That’s the highest percentage of any judge in 2022, but it should be noted that in 2021, Crosby only had the dissenting opinion in one of 46 fights.
Sabatello had more than 10 minutes of ground control time in the fight compared to less than a minute of control time for Stots, but Stots outstruck Sabatello by a wide margin.
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for Bellator 289.
