After five rounds of the headline bout, two judges saw Sandhagen’s clear advantage, giving him the win 50-45 and 49-46, while their third colleague decided Vera won the fight 48-47.
The verdict of referee Joel Ojeda, who gave the victory to Vera, caused bewilderment, since Sandahagen’s victory in at least three rounds out of five looked, if not dominant, then unconditional.
The official statistics of the match, according to which Corey Sandhagen more than doubled his opponent in the number of common and accented strikes, and also had three takedowns, leaves no doubt who is the winner of this confrontation.
In the co-main event of the event, Russian Yana Santos (Kunitskaya), who returned to the octagon after an almost two-year break, could not oppose anything to American Holly Holm, losing to the former UFC bantamweight champion by unanimous decision with a score of 30-26 and 30-27 twice.
In the third most important event of the tournament, American featherweight Nate Landwehr finished his compatriot Austin Lingo by rear naked choke in the second round.
Among other results of the event, we note the successful performance of the Russian middleweight Albert Duraev, who defeated the American Chidi Njokuani by a separate decision.
Early victories were won by Daniel Pineda and CJ Vergara.
All UFC on ESPN 43 tournament results.