Raufeon Stots does not want Doug Crosby judging any more of his fights after Crosby delivered one of the worst scorecards in recent memory at Bellator 289.
Crosby delivered a 50-45 scorecard in favor of Stots opponent Danny Sabatello — a score that seemed incredibly egregious to anyone who watched the interim bantamweight championship headliner this past Friday. Luckily for Stots, the other two judges saw the fight the way most others did, scoring it 48-47 for Stots as he retained his interim title.
Stots blasted Crosby’s scorecard and said the veteran judge should never oversee another one of his fights.
“I need to ask the general public, the MMA fans, how the f*** do you get Doug Crosby suspended from my fights? Because I had seen he was banned from Ray Longo’s fights, I want to join that ship,” Stots said on The MMA Hour. “I don’t want him nowhere near [any] of my cards. I need to figure that out.
“I don’t want him judging anything related to me, any of my friends, none of it. I seen what he did to my friend, my homeboy Jared Gordon, he did that 50-45 to me. Professionally, I’m cool on Doug Crosby. I hope he has a good life away from me, but as far as anything [related to] me, I don’t want a part of it.”
With the win, Stots has now been victorious in 11 straight, including a 7-0 run since signing exclusively with Bellator. While Sabatello had his moments with his wrestling and control, Stots delivered most of the damage throughout the bout.
When Stots heard Crosby’s scorecard, it left a bad taste in his mouth.
“When I heard that s***, I was like The Illuminati — this motherf*****, this whole s*** is rigged,” Stots said. “I was thinking like Black Panther, the man had finally got me. I made it all the way to the top, and the man got me.
“I thought it was just outrageous. Then also, I’m thinking in my head, ‘Am I that off?’ 50-45, I didn’t expect that at all. All rationale in my head was like, ‘Did I hit him? Did I control the fight like I thought I did?’ It was just a bunch of doubt and confusion after the 50-45. Even after they were reading the rest of the scorecards, the 50-45 just threw me off.
“I was like, ‘What the f*** is going on?’”
Of course, that was not the end of the judging controversy for Crosby, who headed to Las Vegas to score fights at UFC 282, including the heavily debated decision win for Paddy Pimblett over Jared Gordon in the co-main event.
Like a lot of other people in the space, Stots thought Gordon won the fight, and he finds it inexplicable that Crosby was allowed to sit in the judges’ seat across the country just one night after delivering an all-time bad scorecard.
“Like how? Who is that on? I feel like that’s on Doug Crosby,” Stots explained. “Why the f*** are you [taking that job]? Professional courtesy — it’s different time zones, you’ve got to worry about jet lag, it’s like a three-hour f****** time difference, then you come over [to Las Vegas] and make more bad decisions?
“The thing that gets me, too, is afterward, if this stuff — and I know they’re going to do a review, so shout out to the commission for that — but he just goes on his merry goddamn way and f***** over somebody’s life, and he’ll go do the same thing next week, or whenever the f*** he wants to do it, that’s f****** disgusting, bro. You f****** up somebody’s trajectory, somebody’s livelihood, and in my head — and I don’t know the dude personally — I think he’s like, ‘Ehh, got that one wrong. Maybe next time I’ll get it right.’ He just, s***, brushes it off of his shoulders and goes on about his day.”
