The first Championship fight of the 3 title fights on one night at UFC 251 on Fight Island was for the vacant Bantamweight strap. Here Petr Yan took on Jose Aldo in an absolute thriller for a large part. The two were competitive and responded with offensive flurries when it appeared that the other had delivered a fight changing strike. 

However, at the end of round 4, ‘No Mercy’ took the initiative with ‘Junior’ getting saved by the buzzer. An unfazed Yan took a punch at the start of the 5th, before landing a clean shot on the Brazilian. He staggered back and had no offensive answer to the Russian’s brutal punches. 

The referee called the fight with just over a minute left and left fans divided over the stoppage. Now a former UFC fighter and ONE Championship VP Miesha Tate aired her opinion on the stoppage. She feels that fighters know the risk and want to have every opportunity to fight out of a predicament in the cage. 

Miesha Tate says fighters know the risk

In a chat with Ryan McKinnel on MMA on SiriusXM, Tate said, “I am not a fan of fights being stopped too early and people are concerned about safety. My argument is, we are in a hurt business, we fight for a living. We sign on the dotted line and we know exactly what we are risking and we want to be allowed to risk it.” 

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‘Cupcake’ continued, “We don’t want to be stolen, we don’t want to be robbed, we don’t want our fights to be stopped quickly.”

At UFC 251, Yan mounted Aldo and landed fists and elbows at will. To his credit, ‘Junior’ managed to turn and change position. However, all it did was provide the Russian with a new spot to target. As a result, blood oozed out of the former Featherweight champion’s face onto the canvas. 

The former UFC women’s Bantamweight Champion reasons that the delayed stoppages occurred due to slowdowns in the fight. As per ‘Cupcake’, these happened due to Aldo moving. Or perhaps Yan adjusting to hit Aldo even more.

Later in the interview, Tate adds that ‘No Mercy’ shouldn’t have relented for those few seconds too which allowed the referee to prolong the fight. 

Tate continued, “I wasn’t cringing at that stoppage, I wasn’t upset. There was maybe two times in the last 30 seconds or so. About 2 points I was like ‘Oh he can stop it here,’ but the ref chose not to. I didn’t feel upset about that because right when I thought he should probably stop it, there was a slowdown in the action. Petr adjusted position or Jose moved”

Tate is not upset by the UFC 251 stoppage

Despite landing only 1 strike in the final round, Aldo continued to wriggle away or block ‘No Mercy’s brutal shots. Tate believes that Aldo knew that the fight was over, but she doesn’t believe that the stoppage was bad. 

She said, “I don’t think it was a horrible stoppage. Do I think it could’ve been stopped earlier? Yea. And I wouldn’t have been upset about it. It definitely could have been called probably at least two times before that and I would have felt it was a good stoppage.”

Finally, Tate praised the referee Leon Roberts for not overdoing his job and calling the fight too early to protect one fighter. 

“But the referee chose to let them fight it out and give ample opportunity. I’m not really upset about this, lot of people are, I mean, we’re fighting. We’d way rather have a referee who lets fighters be fighters than somebody who wants to overdo their job and stops fights soon. For me that’s the key, I would have that man referee my fight any day of the week.”

What do you make of Miesha Tate’s comments on referees and the UFC 251 Bantamweight Title fight? Do you think the stoppage was good?  

WATCH: Petr Yan Annihilates Jose Aldo to Become the UFC Bantamweight Champion at UFC 251