Though Saad Awad has accepted his defeat at Bellator 219 graciously, he was livid with one judge’s scorecard Friday night.
Temecula, CA — “Sucks.” That’s how Saad Awad summed up the feeling coming out of his main event loss to Brandon Girtz at Bellator 219. That’s a bit of an understatement, actually. It’s not fun to lose at anything, but you don’t walk out of a game of monopoly battered and bruised. Unless you come from a particularly competitive family.
Fighting, that’s a whole different ballgame. Awad was showing his battle scars after the bout, but still made his way back stage to speak with media members including Cageside Press following the main event.
“I don’t think there’s an explanation you can give when you lose a fight, especially one like that,” he added. “I fight the way I fight. He caught me with a couple of them, I didn’t see them coming. I think that made all the difference. I think if I had somehow stayed on my feet, I think that would have rendered the judges decision.”
Awad suggested that being dropped (as he was in the first round) put him in a spot where he had to battle back from possible 10-8s. Overall, he feels the fight could have gone either way. Though the lightweight took umbrage with one judge.
“The 30-27 judge’s scorecard, I don’t know where the hell that was,” he exclaimed. “So whoever that was, they need to be fired.” Not mincing words, he declared “that’s f*cked up. It could have went either way, but when you have a judge like that, it’s f*cked up to the sport.”
In the third, when he was covering up with Girtz landing ground n’ pound, Awad said that “I thought the ref was going to stop it, because it was in the back of the head.” He admitted that “he did have control, I couldn’t get up, I’ll be honest with you, but at the same time, I was getting punched in the back of the head.” However, the ref let it slide, and the outcome was a unanimous decision win for Girtz.
Watch the full Bellator 219 post-fight press scrum with Saad Awad above!
