Highway robbery or right decision? Everybody’s got an opinion on who won the UFC 301 main event between Alexandre Pantoja and Steve Erceg.
Many thought the flyweight champion would be way too much for the green #10 contender Erceg to handle, but the Western Australian was as game as they come in his first UFC title fight, giving Pantoja one of his toughest fights yet. After five grueling rounds of closely-contested action, Pantoja would get the unanimous decision nod (48-47, 48-47, 49-46) to retain the title.
Though, not everybody had the same scorecards as the official judges down in Brazil. In some eyes, the underdog Erceg had won the fight with his striking prowess and accumulated enough damage on the champ to become one himself. The conflicting argument was Pantoja’s work in the grappling department where he shined against Erceg.
Pulling from a few different sources, let’s check out how the rest of the world scored Pantoja vs. Erceg at UFC 301.
MMA Decisions
Out of 25 media members, 22 scored the fight for Pantoja. 20 had it 48-47 for Pantoja while 2 had the champion winning every round except one at 49-46. Only 3 media members, including myself, had the fight for Erceg. Two scores were logged in at 48-47 with one score at 49-46 for “Astroboy”.
Media scores: 22-3 PANTOJA
Fan scoring on MMA Decisions tells a different story altogether. From 400 submitted scorecards, the result is dead even at 198 votes (49.5%) a piece for each fighter. The remaining 4 votes had it as a 48-48 draw between Pantoja and Erceg. You can see how each round was judged in the graphic below.
Fan scores: 49.5%-49.5% DRAW
The fans are split on who won the #UFC301 main event and after 400 submitted scores, it’s all tied up at 49.5% for both Pantoja and Erceg.
— Christopher De Santiago (@Chris_DSantiago) May 5, 2024
Meanwhile, it’s a clear picture on the media side 😅 @MMADecisions pic.twitter.com/lwgn6a5yPW
Verdict MMA
The Verdict app allows fans to submit scores for each round and the more dominant the round, the better the fighter’s overall final score. The majority of votes had Erceg winning rounds 2, 3 and 4 with round 4 being the clearest round for Erceg. Pantoja, who won rounds 1 and 5 by a pretty large margin, ended up winning the fight when it came to the final score, but lost in the round-to-round basis.
Fan Scores (Verdict final score): 47.69-47.37 PANTOJA
Fan Scores (Round-by-round): 48-47 ERCEG
Alexandre Pantoja vs. Steve Erceg was razor close.
— Verdict (@VerdictMMA) May 5, 2024
The Verdict Scorecard tells the story of the fight.#UFC301 pic.twitter.com/y8IEtpUJKL
How did you score the main event between Alexandre Pantoja and Steve Erceg?
