Top-ranked heavyweights Curtis Blaydes and Waldo Cortes Acosta entered the Octagon tonight with expectations of putting on a show for the audience. However, their lackluster showdown on the UFC Noche main card brought nothing but scoring controversy and scorching backlash from the fans.

Both fighters were looking to get back into the win column after suffering losses in their last fights. But neither fighter showed the urgency needed to make a statement, as the heavyweights bored the crowd with 15 minutes of painfully slow action. 

Going by the stats posted by ESPN, Curtis Blaydes landed a total of 24 significant strikes out of 74 thrown. On the flip side, Waldo Cortes Acosta retaliated with 28 out of 95. Though, understandably, heavyweights tend to lose their output in the later rounds, UFC Noche fighters never really put their foot on the gas, resulting in a lackluster bout.

In the end, it was Curtis Blaydes who won the bout via a 29–28, 29–28, 29–28 unanimous decision, thanks to landing four takedowns out of 10 attempts and accumulating 3:38 of control time. However, the heavyweight fight quickly became embroiled in controversy after the UFC revealed the judges’ scorecard.  

All three judges scored different rounds in Acosta’s favor, raising eyebrows among fans. Judge Mike Bell gave the second round to the Dominican fighter, Eric Colon awarded ‘Salsa Boy’ the third, while the third judge, Andrew Topps, scored the first round for Acosta. As a result, all three judges awarded him a 10 in a different round.

That said, this is not the first time a Blaydes and Cortes-Acosta fight has ended in scoring controversy. After ‘Salsa Boy’ defeated Sergei Spivac via unanimous decision at UFC 316, many fans disagreed with the verdict, believing Spivac had done enough to take the first and third rounds. 

Last year, Curtis Blaydes’ split-decision win over Rizvan Kuniev also came under scrutiny, with fans accusing the judges of completely ignoring Kuniev’s pressure on the feet.  

After the judges’ scorecards were revealed, fans grew furious and ripped the judges to shreds over the glaring discrepancies in how they scored the fight.

Fans blast judges after Curtis Blaydes’ UFC Noche victory sparks scoring controversy  

One fan quickly chimed in and wrote, “Ok so the judges had no clue how to score this huh? 2 judges gave Curtis round 3? Robbery.” A different fan then commented, “29-28 acosta what was that?” Following this, another user took a shot at the judges, writing, “Its sad, they show us that terrible scorecard and do absolutely nothing with this judges.”

The backlash continued as another user called out the judges for scoring three different rounds for Waldo Cortes Acosta, writing, “This legit proves how retarded these judges are all 3 judges gave Waldo different rounds.”

To be fair, the number of significant strikes was too low to judge the fight purely on that basis. However, Curtis Blaydes landed takedowns in each round, which gave him an edge. Still, that doesn’t explain the judges giving Acosta three different rounds across their scorecards, but that’s definitely not the first time we’ve seen such a discrepancy.

On January 17, 2016, Dominick Cruz defended his bantamweight title against TJ Dillashaw via split decision. However, the scorecards from that fight turned out to be outright baffling.

Judge Sal D’Amato scored only the second round for Cruz while awarding the rest to Dillashaw. The second judge, David Ginsberg, saw a completely different fight, scoring four rounds for Cruz and the remaining two for T.J. Dillashaw. Then, the third judge, Tony Weeks, gave only the first round to Dillashaw while scoring the rest for the defending champion.

After the judges, fans also grilled the matchup itself, with one writing, “Embarrassing. I’m dead serious when I say death sentence puts on better fights than whatever that was.”

Another fan wrote, “Curtis Blaydes beats Waldo Cortes Acosta at least 29-28 #UFCNoche. Boring as f—k to watch, a couple minutes of Blaydes’ wrestling early turned Waldo into your average heavyweight fat blob.”

Here, the fan took a dig at Blaydes for using his wrestling to make the fight boring, while also taking a shot at Acosta for failing to properly defend the takedowns. But, to be fair, ‘Razor’ attempted 10 takedowns and landed only four, showing that ‘Salsa Boy’ had actually worked on his takedown defense. While doing so, however, he couldn’t land enough strikes of his own.

Despite the heavyweight fight facing criticism for being boring and the judges’ controversy, most of the other fights remained fairly clean.