Retro Robbery Review: Alexa Grasso vs. Valentina Shevchenko 2 at Noche UFC

13/09/2024 14:00

Few things infuriate MMA fans more than a fight being scored incorrectly, though the term "robbery" tends to be thrown around carelessly and is often steeped in bias. With Robbery Review, we'll take a look back at controversial fights and determine whether the judges were rightly criticized for their decision or if pundits need to examine their own knee-jerk reactions.

Alexa Grasso and Valentina Shevchenko meet for a third time on Saturday at UFC 306, in a fight that's supposed to determine once and for all who is the true queen of the 125-pound division.

Let's hope we get a more definitive answer than what we saw in their rematch.

When Grasso shockingly submitted Shevchenko to claim the flyweight title in their first fight at UFC 285, it was all but guaranteed that Shevchenko would be granted an immediate rematch given her impressive run as champion. The runback occurred six months later on Sept. 16, 2023 at the inaugural Noche UFC, and after an awesome 25-minute fight, the judges' verdict was anybody's guess.

As it turned out, a split draw was announced, leaving everyone slightly confused, somewhat shocked, and then downright befuddled when the official scorecards were released.

It's time to take a proper look back at Grasso-Shevchenko 2 before they face off again. For one thing, it's just fun to rewatch this classic contest, but more importantly, it's about time that we dusted off the Robbery Review lab equipment to help us figure out if either Grasso or Shevchenko were robbed of a legitimate win on that memorable September night.

What was the official result?

Alexa Grasso vs. Valentina Shevchenko ends in a split draw.

How did the fight go?

Even though Shevchenko arguably had the edge in the first matchup with Grasso before making a fateful mistake, it was obvious how evenly matched these women are and the early part of the rematch was no different.

Shevchenko's precision was on full display as she went to the body with kicks to set the tone, while keeping her left hand loaded up to catch Grasso coming in. The champion closed the distance, prompting Shevchenko to go for a takedown that was stuffed. Still, she caught a nice elbow off of it. On Grasso's side, she stuck with her jab, trusting it to keep Shevchenko at bay. However, the former champion found an opening for a takedown and hunted for a back-take before Grasso brought the fight back to the feet.

In Round 2, Grasso let her hands go and it paid off as she scored with strikes before blocking another Shevchenko takedown. The complexion of the fight dramatically changed when Grasso cracked Shevchenko with a counter right that sent her somersaulting backwards. A quick recovery led to Shevchenko tying Grasso up, which only slowed the action momentarily as Grasso used counter-wrestling to set up a few hard knees to the body and punches to the face. Shevchenko anticipated Grasso resetting with the jab and put her on her back with a perfectly timed takedown. For the most part, Grasso tied Shevchenko up and despite Shevchenko's best attempts to crack Grasso's defense, the most damaging strike might have been a Grasso upkick. On to Round 3.

Shevchenko's kicks were so sharp, it was amazing to see her adapt on the fly after 10 minutes of data. She did a much better job of moving in and out of Grasso's range to open the third, though Grasso continued to come forward with fundamental boxing. Such a great fight. Shevchenko's wrestling focus paid off big time as she grounded Grasso for much of this round and threatened with a deep guillotine choke. Grasso was left to defend and wait out the clock.

Through three rounds, it was anyone's fight. Shevchenko's jab was on display early in Round 4, another wrinkle in her incredibly diverse game. It looked like she might out-strike Grasso for five minutes, but instead she went for a costly takedown. Grasso stuffed it and controlled Shevchenko's head, rifling in knees while forcing her backwards to prevent Shevchenko from reaching down to ground herself. A slam by Grasso put Shevchenko down, but not for long as Shevchenko stood up hit a hard elbow on the separation. With 90 seconds to go, Shevchenko went back to the jab and added a late trip (that Grasso almost countered with a kneebar), but was it enough to outweigh Grasso's knees and slam?

Final round. The striking exchanges were so close, it looked impossible for either warrior to create distance on the scorecards. At a glance, Shevchenko appeared to be a shade better with her boxing. Then, déjà vu. Shevchenko went for a trip, only to have Grasso immediately take her back. No fight-ending submission this time, but an emphatic sequence of ground-and-pound for Grasso, leading to at least one *ahem* interesting scorecard.

What did the judges say?

Mike Bell scored it 47-47.

Sal D'Amato scored it 48-47 Shevchenko.

Junichiro Kamijo scored it 48-47 Grasso.

We should probably break these down, right?

Through the first three rounds, all was well in Judgelandia, with Bell, D'Amato, and Kamijo all having it 29-28 for Shevchenko, with "Bullet" taking Rounds 1 and 3.

In Round 4, Kamijo gave a 10-9 to Grasso, while Bell and D'Amato had it 10-9 Shevchenko.

Based on those scores, Grasso was down on two scorecards and needed a finish to retain her title. Or so we thought. Instead, she left the octagon with the belt thanks to Bell issuing a 10-8 score in her favor (D'Amato and Kamijo scored it 10-9 Grasso) and leaving us with a split draw.

Let's put a pin in this.

What did the numbers say?

(Statistics per UFC Stats)

Total significant strikes: 84-80 in Grasso's favor. She had a huge advantage in Round 2 (28-15), which is also where she scored the lone knockdown of the fight, but other than that, no round was separated by more than five significant strikes.

Not helpful, numbers!

Digging deeper, Shevchenko had the advantage in control time with over 8:30 over the five rounds, most notably in Round 3 when she nullified much of Grasso's offense.

Shevchenko also had a slight edge in head (61-54) and ground strikes (7-2), while Grasso scored more to the body (12-6) and legs (18-13).

What did the media say?

Members of the media listed on MMA Decisions were just about split down the middle, with 11 having it 48-47 Grasso and 11 having it 48-47 Shevchenko. I say "just about" because one intrepid soul (who shall remain nameless) actually had it 47-46 for Grasso.

What did the people say?

(Data derived from MMA Decisions and Verdict MMA)

With nearly 2000 scores submitted to MMA Decisions, it's safe to say that fight fans had some thoughts on this subject. They were just as torn on the result as the judges and the media, with 46 percent having it 48-47 Grasso and 41.3 percent having it 48-47 Shevchenko. For what it's worth, two percent had it the same as Bell, 47-47.

As far as Round 4 goes, 52.8 percent had it for Grasso, and 45.1 percent for Shevchenko.

On Verdict, the final score was absurdly close according to fans, with Shevchenko winning by a measly 23 points.

Really, that should be even closer because anyone who didn't score Round 2 for Grasso should be embarrassed.

You want to know how close this fight was? Check out the Round 4 fan score, which had a difference of ZERO points. That almost never happens on the Verdict app as far as I can recall.

How did I score it?

I had it 48-47 Grasso when I first watched and I'm still comfortable with that score. But Round 4 was a toss-up and if you had it for Shevchenko, I don't blame you. For the sake of transparency, let's do a brief round-by-round explanation:

• Round 1: 10-9 Shevchenko. She landed the heavier punches in my view and a timely takedown prevented Grasso from mustering up any late-round heroics.
• Round 2: 10-9 Grasso. This is as clear as it gets. The round was decided when Grasso scored a knockdown and followed with big knees in the clinch.
• Round 3: 10-9 Shevchenko. Another round that shouldn't be difficult to score. Shevchenko dominated on the ground and all but nullified Grasso's offense.
• Round 4: 10-9 Grasso. Not confident here. Grasso had the best moment of the round when she drove those knees into Shevchenko's head, plus a slam, but Shevchenko was outboxing her the rest of the time. A 10-9 Shevchenko score is completely acceptable.
• Round 5: 10-9 Grasso. She put a stamp on the round with that late flurry. Was it a 10-8, though? Eeeeh… I can't get there.

One could argue that Grasso did enough damage to threaten ending the fight, but Shevchenko was always defending intelligently and at no point did I feel referee Herb Dean was close to stepping in. Not to mention Shevchenko was having success in the standup early in the round, so I don't see how Grasso's surge mitigates that.

Was it a robbery?

I can't emphasize enough how much I disagree with giving Grasso that 10-8. I'm not sure I buy the reasoning that Bell was making up for giving Round 4 to Shevchenko (a justifiable call!), because if that's the case, then that just makes this so much worse.

That said, Grasso indisputably won two rounds and it's easy to lean towards her in the fourth as well. Since it's been a while since I've done one of these, I'll remind you that I only consider a fight a robbery if it's blindingly obvious that one competitor was superior and was not rewarded.

That's not what happened here. What happened here was two of the best in the world fought an incredibly close fight that could have gone either way and the result was muddled by a bizarre scoring decision. Based on the cards after four rounds, Shevchenko was on her way to becoming champion again, but it's not a travesty of justice that Grasso retained based on her actual performance.

The final verdict

Not a robbery. But Bell's Round 5 score is real bad and it feels like we've just had way too many examples of a lone judge leaving a bad taste in people's mouths these days.