Big Bad Blog Video Theater-Justine Kish vs Nina Ansaroff

Here's the match video of Justine Kish vs Nina Ansaroff from last night's UFC show in Las Vegas. It aired on the prelims on Fox Sports 1 in the US and TSN in Canada. Even if you haven't seen this fight, you probably already know that it was one of several close fights on this show with controversial judges decisions. I watched the fight a second time just to see if I missed anything. But I still score it 29-28 for Nina. Justine's problem in round one was she kept charging in aggressively with her hands down. So most of Nina's punches were counterpunches. I thought she was more effective. So I scored round one 10-9 for Nina. Two of the three judges scored it 10-9 for Justine. I guess they were giving her credit for initiating contact. But she wasn't landing cleanly and Nina's counters were more effective. And between rounds Justine's corner told her to keep her hands up. Round two went the same way until they went to the ground with a minute left. I don't think much happened to the point where the ref told them to get busy. So I scored round two 10-9 for Nina. Both corners told their fighters to fight like they were down two rounds. In round three, I thought Nina ran out of gas and Justine did some good work on the ground. I scored round three 10-9 for Justine. So I scored the fight 29-28 for Nina. Most of the scores I saw on Twitter last night were similar. So when the judges came back with 30-27, 30-27, 29-28 for Justine, no one could believe it because no one thought she won the fight. Justine admitted in a post fight interview on Sherdog that she needs to work on keeping her hands up. I think she dodged a bullet because the judging in Nevada is so poor. That's what needs to be reformed but I don't expect it. Enjoy the video!