"A body lock is a neutral position" - Cory Sandhagen believes wrestling without inflicting significant damage shouldn't account for points in modern MMA

Cory Sandhagen has spoken about why he believes wrestling that doesn’t inflict significant damage shouldn’t be used to score fights.

Cory Sandhagen took the time to speak about some of his thoughts on how the bout against Dillashaw was scored during an appearance on The MMA Hour.

“I still think I did more of the damage but I was also on my back and I know how these things are scored, so let’s say he gets one, I definitely blow him out of the park in round two, round three was close, round four was close, round five I think that I had. Without getting going too much, because I’ve kind of moved past it, I think that holding a body lock needs to be seen as a neutral position. That’s not a winning position, especially if you can’t take the guy down. Even if it is a winning position in the wrestling world, we’re not in the wrestling world.”

Just a few months back, at the height of the UFC’s summer schedule, Cory Sandhagen lost a close split decision to TJ Dillashaw in one of the most exciting bantamweight fights of the year. Both men felt as if they’d done enough to win, but it was the returning Dillashaw who wound up getting his hand raised.

Check out Cory Sandhagen's appearance on The MMA Hour below:

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Cory Sandhagen's focus shifts to UFC 267

While there’s definitely some lingering frustration in the air with respect to how Cory Sandhagen feels about the Dillashaw result, he can’t spend a whole lot of time dwelling on it.

That's because an injury to TJ combined with Aljamain Sterling being on the shelf has opened the door for him to compete at UFC 267 with the interim bantamweight title on the line. He'll go head-to-head with Petr Yan for the right to be called champion, with the winner progressing to a unification bout against 'Funk Master' at some point in 2022.

From there, there's every chance we could see a Cory Sandhagen vs TJ Dillashaw rematch.