Big Bad Blog Video Theater-Jessica Eye vs Sarah Kaufman

Here's the match video of Jessica Eye vs Sarah Kaufman from last night's UFC show in Houston. Sarah was the betting favourite because the perception is that Jessica is a 125lb fighter moving up up to 135. I think that may have been blown out of proportion. Jessica said in a recent interview that she only fought at 125 because the opportunity to fight in Bellator was what was presented to her at the time. She says Sean Shelby contacted her a couple of years ago when he was booking Strikeforce. She also prefers the weight cut to 135. Both Jessica and Sarah like to stand and bang so I didn't expect any takedowns and I think both are good strikers so I expected a close fight. I was not surprised by a split decision. I scored round one 10-9 for Jessica and round three 10-9 for Sarah. Round two was very close. I thought it was close enough that in Japan, the round would have been scored a tie and the fight would have been a draw. But here in North America, judges don't like to score tie rounds. But I scored round two a tie so for me, the fight is a draw. Yeah, I know, it's like kissing your sister. But sometimes the reluctance to score tie rounds results in odd judging decisions. I don't think that was the case here. One of the judges scored round two for Sarah and round three for Jessica. I don't see how anyone can score round three for Jessica. It was a close competitive fight and it could have gone either way. So I have no problem with Jessica getting the win. And I don't think a split decision one way or another does anything for Sarah Kaufman. With her loss to Ronda Rousey still fresh in people's minds, she needed to win in a more decisive way. If she had done in round one what she did in round three, she would have won. But she didn't. And of course she won a split decision over Leslie Smith in April that a lot of fans thought she lost. But if she thinks fights like that are going to get her back in the title hunt, she is sadly mistaken. Maybe she needs a new strategy. Enjoy the video!