Last Saturday, the newly-crowned UFC strawweight champion Carla Esparza had a lot of reasons to celebrate. But a few days after, she admitted there was something unsettling that night.
Esparza successfully captured the title again since losing it to Joanna Jedrzejczyk at UFC 185 back in 2015. This made her the second woman in UFC history to hold the title twice.
She took the belt from the reigning champion Rose Namajunas in one of the worst bouts in recent history. Esparza also broke the record for the longest period between title wins with 8 years between UFC 185 and UFC 274.
Joe Rogan, Daniel Cormier, and Jon Anik criticized the fight for lacking action. Cormier even expressed that both competitors will be pissed by how they called the fight.
Joe Rogan furiously stated that the early rounds shouldn’t be scored. He said, “Nothing happened. They should be 0-0 rounds.”
“Rose and Carla are gonna be pissed off at us [the commentary team]. Because we just had to, kinda, call it like it is. No one is above criticism, and that fight was to be criticized,”
During an appearance on The MMA Hour, ‘The Cookie Monster’ suggested that the commentary team at the desk was biased toward her opponent. According to her, especially in early rounds.
“To be honest, I thought that the commentary, especially early on in the fight, was — it was a combination of a little bit of bias on the side for Rose, but I also felt like they were being kinda real on a lot of notes, just about the fight in general, kinda talking crap on it,” said Esparza.
“It sucks to hear, but I kinda knew that was what people were thinking during the fight.
“But I definitely feel like commentators can tend to be one-sided sometimes, and I felt like that was the case, especially earlier in the fight,” concluded Esparza.
Esparza’s claim of biased commentary would certainly be more credible if she actually did anything besides faint and wait for Namajunas to open up.