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MMA judge Sal D'Amato has once again become the topic of discussion after his judging on Marvin Vettori vs. Jared Cannonier, which took place on June 17 at the UFC Apex Facility in Paradise Nevada.
Vettori and Cannonier went toe-to-toe in the main event of UFC Vegas 75. Vettori did well in the opening round but 'The Killa Gorilla' turned the tide and started to gain momentum from the second round onwards. The fight went the full 25-minute distance and in the end, Cannonier got his hand raised via unanimous decision.
The three judges scored the contest 49-45, 49-45, and 48-46 in favor of the 39-year-old. Despite the outcome being a unanimous decision, a controversy emerged regarding the scorecards.
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The three scorecards for the fight looked quite similar as all the three judges had given the first round to Vettori and then scored the second round a 10-8 for Cannonier.
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But MMA judge Sal D'Amato was the outlier as he was the only one to award the fourth round in favor of 'The Italian Dream'.
D'Amato's actions drew criticism from several MMA fans who took to social media to share their thoughts on his scorecard.
One Twitter user suggested for some action be taken against D'Amato for regularly giving out controversial scorecards for fights.
"We need to have a serious dialogue about Sal D’Amato’s judging credentials. Time after time his card sticks out like a sore thumb."
Another individual asked for the MMA judge to explain the reasoning behind scoring the penultimate round in favor of Vettori.
"Can we please talk about Sal D’Amato and the 4th round? He should have to explaining his scoring."
A few more tweets on the issue can be seen below:
Sal D'Amato: Apart from Marvin Vettori vs. Jared Cannonier, what other scorecards by the judge have attracted controversy?
Sal D'Amato has been a controversial figure in MMA for quite some time. The judge often gets criticized by MMA fighters and fans alike for his verdicts.
D'Amato, along with Chris Lee, scored the recent fight between Kai Kara-France and Amir Albazi with a score of 48-47 in favor of the latter.
This enraged UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya who took to Twitter to slam the two judges.
Before that, D'Amato was the sole dissenting judge in the fight between Sean Strickland and Jack Hermansson. The two middleweights locked horns in February 2022 in a five-round clash. Strickland got the better of his opponent and edged out a split-decision victory. The scorecards became a topic of discussion as D'Amato was the only judge who believed Hermansson to be the rightful victor.
Sal D'Amato's scorecard resulted in backlash from many MMA personalities including Michael Chandler and Strickland's coach Eric Nicksick.
