LAS VEGAS — Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson probably wishes that UFC president Dana White was a judge in Las Vegas right now.
When the scores were read for the main event on Saturday night, Thompson came up short against welterweight champion Tyron Woodley in a majority decision loss just four months after earning a draw with him at UFC 205.
After the fight was over, UFC president Dana White spoke to FOX Sports and said that he actually scored “Wonderboy” getting the decision over Woodley.
“I had it 3-2 for ‘Wonderboy,’ ” White said. “I didn’t think it was going to be a draw. From the fight that I watched, I had it 3-2 ‘Wonderboy.’ One of the judges scored the last round 10-8, which is insane.”
The judge in question, Sal D’Amato, was actually the official who scored the fight 47-47 so even if he hadn’t given the last round a 10-8, the result would have still been the same.
Obviously, White didn’t agree with the overall decision but that doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things because he’s not the one who is in charge of scoring the fights and the judges sitting cage side agreed that Woodley was the victor.
“Tyron is the champ. He won tonight,” White said. “Me, the fans, everybody else, we’re not the judges. The judges called him the winner tonight, so he’s the winner.”
For his part, Woodley took no offense to White’s score for the fight and he says the UFC president even told him that backstage after the event was over.
“That’s why he’s not the judge. He’s the president of the UFC,” Woodley said about White. “He told me the same thing in the back. I took no offense to it. Sometimes you watch fights, you watch with emotion and if you know Dana his fight style is the Diego Sanchez, these dudes that are beating each other up, that’s his stuff, that’s his style. It’s not always the most attractive fight to see the guys that are playing a chess match.
“No, it didn’t offend me at all. It was a close fight.”
