UFC 313 star admits that his opponent should have won following robbery claims
03/12/2025 04:52 AM
UFC 313 featured several promising contenders that were looking to maintain their rise at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Though March 8 did serve up some highlight reel performances, judging was a major talking point in the aftermath of the event.
Some fans debated the outcome of Alex Pereira vs Magomed Ankalaev which saw the Russian become the new light heavyweight champion via a majority decision.
However, the main event had nothing on a prelim fight where the scorecards were trashed by Joe Rogan and Daniel Cormier on commentary.
Francis Marshall has already spoken out on his controversial loss to Mairon Santos but now the Brazilian fighter has also had his say.
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Mairon Santos agrees that Francis Marshall deserved to win after rewatching the fight
In his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan, Mairon Santos was booed in Las Vegas as he stated that he thought he won the fight.
The 24-year-old Brazilian was the featherweight winner of last year’s instalment of The Ultimate Fighter and this past weekend at UFC 313, he looked to secure his first win since joining the roster.
Two judges scored the fight 29-28 in Santos’ favor whilst Derek Cleary had Francis Marshall winning all three rounds.
Both Rogan and Cormier stated that Marshall winning all three rounds seemed like the far more reasonable outcome and that opinion was shared by the media scores on MMA Decisions where every card had the American getting the win.
In a recent interview with Inside Fighting, Santos admitted that after going back to watch the fight through a new lens, he agreed that his opponent was hard done by.
“When the fight ended, I thought okay, I won but after rewatching the fight, I think he should have had his hand raised because the fight was very close and the takedown made a difference. I didn’t know that he did so well in the striking so yeah man, that’s my thoughts on the fight.”
Both Mairon Santos and Francis Marshall have moved on
It makes total sense why Mairon Santos would want to move on from UFC 313 following a controversial win.
Whilst it wasn’t his best performance, the rising contender clearly has a lot of potential and putting this drama behind him as quickly as possible is the best move.
For Francis Marshall, he could’ve done the opposite and continued to kick up a fuss about being robbed on Saturday night in Las Vegas.
He instead put the emphasis on the elements that he could control, stating that he made some significant improvements in recent times but it simply wasn’t enough to convince the judges on this occasion.
