Kansas City — Light heavyweight Dustin Jacoby has had quite the career resurgence in recent years.
Since returning to the UFC in 2020, after a brief run that didn’t go his way in 2010/11, Jacoby has posted an impressive 6-1-1 record, which has landed him in the #13 spot in the promotion’s light heavyweight division.
The loss in that span came in his last fight, against Khalil Rountree Jr. And while Jacoby (18-6-1) is now looking ahead to a fight with Azamat Murzakanov at UFC Kansas City, he still takes umbrage with the scoring in the Rountree fight, which resulted in a split decision.
“I still think I won. Again, I controlled the pace of that fight, I out-struck him. He did land some big shots, but I was never rocked. I don’t know how you score damage in that fight,” Jacoby observed during Wednesday’s media day, speaking to journalists including Cageside Press. “Is it damage because I got a black eye? Is that how we’re measuring, the power of the punches? Or are you doing damage by, I out-struck him by 70-somthing strikes and those add up more than the big punches? I don’t know.”
Jacoby isn’t trying to take anything anyway from opponent Rountree, noting that it was a tough fight, and “he’s a tough warrior, tough competitor.” But, he added, he feels Rountree knew he lost the fight, “I still think I did enough to win.”
In the end, “you’ve got to let bygones be bygones, keep that in the past and continue moving forward,” Jacoby added. Yet while he wants to move forward, Dustin Jacoby does have an idea for fixing the unquestionably poor judging that seems to permeate mixed martial arts as a whole.
“I think to help that problem, you have the judges score the fight but they don’t sit cageside. They sit in a boxed room, with no sound, no audio, no commentators, no coaches, no crowd influence, and they judge the fight on a screen with no sound,” Jacoby suggested. “I think that that would be a solution to the problem, or at least help it. Because I think they’re persuaded.”
Jacoby noted that the judges seemed to be persuaded by the crowd and announcers in his fight with Rountree. Isolating them would at least remove the potential for the judges to be influenced. “That would be my first recommendation. Put them in a box back behind doors in a silent room, and see how that works.”
Watch the full UFC Kansas City media day appearance by Dustin Jacoby above.
