Fabio Maldonado is getting justice for his controversial loss to Fedor Emelianenko in June. Well, sort of.
The World MMA Association announced on Friday that the result of the EFN 50 Maldonado-Emelianenko bout, which was a majority decision win for Fedor would be overturned to a draw. The reason given was scoring inadequacies, as well as conflict of interest, as Emelianenko is involved in the Russian MMA Union.
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"The fact that the fighter, Fedor Emelianenko, being the President of the Russian MMA Union and the Head of Judge, Radmir Gabdullin, have a work relationship could potentially affected the judgmental decisions. We are not saying that this relationship has led to a different outcome of the result, but it is an unfortunate choice," said Secretary General of WMMAA, Alexander Engelhardt in a statement."Another mistake made was the refusing of the appeal. This is was based on the Amateur rules of the WMMAA and this fight was done under the professional rules of WMMAA."
This was the second appeal attempt by Maldonado and his team, as he first tried in June before being struck down. Maldonado said that Emelianenko, the head of the Russian MMA Union, fighting under their jurisdiction was a conflict of interest as it pertained to assigning judges and referees. The Russian MMA Union denied the appeal, saying Maldonado should have appealed within 40 minutes of the three round bout's finish.
The WMMA had three independent judges score the fight, with all three bringing back 28-28 scorecards. Many media, fans and fighters argued that Maldonado should have been scored a 10-8 first round, which all three independent judges did.
In what is no surprise, the Russian MMA Union is not planning on overturning the decision, calling it an "unfounded attempt to take away a well-deserved victory from Russian legend Fedor Emelianenko."
By Sean Ross Sapp
