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Dana White famously tells UFC fighters never to leave a fight in the judges’ hands. It’s a harsh lesson the UFC president believes Jared Gordon should learn after his unanimous decision loss to Paddy Pimblett.
Despite a strong showing that led to almost every single media member scoring the fight in his favor, Gordon ultimately lost to Pimblett, who earned 29-28 scorecards across the board. White believes Gordon has no one to blame but himself after choosing to grind away in the clinch with Pimblett in the third round instead of forcing the action.
“Gordon had a horrible game plan going into that third round,” White said at the UFC 282 post-fight press conference. “You think you won the first two rounds with the judges? How do you know that? Why go in there and throw away the third round and not go in and fight your ass off and try to win.
“If you think you know who won what round or whatever, you’re crazy. I’ve been doing this for 23 years. I have no f****** idea what those guys are going to do or what they’re going to say.”
White believes Gordon would have been better served to follow the lead from Santiago Ponzinibbio, who believed he was down on the scorecards in his fight with Alex Morono so he came out guns blazing in the third round. The end result was Ponzinibbio scoring an emphatic knockout to snatch a victory from the jaws of defeat.
As far as the scoring goes, White didn’t offer an opinion on whether or not he personally believed Gordon had done enough to perhaps win the first two rounds in his fight with Pimblett. Instead, he just derided Gordon’s decision to slow the pace, work from the clinch and largely coast through the third round.
“I thought that Jared Gordon’s game plan in the third round was horrible,” White said. “He felt that he had the first two rounds and he went in and pushed him against the fence and I’ve got to go after the ref [Herb Dean], too. A big fight, co-main event, third round, crowd’s going crazy, you’re going to let them stand against the fence the entire fight?
“But these are the things that happen. What are you going to do? Horrible game plan by Gordon. The ref let it happen and he threw the fight away.”
White did pay Gordon a compliment for his performance through the first 10 minutes, when he was seemingly getting the better of Pimblett on the feet, especially with a nasty left hook that continuously found a home on his opponent’s chin.
Still, Gordon opted to change his strategy in the third round, and that’s why White believes the blame for the result is clear.
“He was doing great in that fight – he should have fought the third round,” White said.
“Don’t go out in the third round and think you won the first two rounds and push a guy against the cage when you were doing great in the fight anyway. You were doing great in the fight. Go out and fight the f****** third round.”
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