Weasle and Luke Thomas are the analysts I respect the most. Weasle seems to lean Charles due to Arman arguably going limp on the darce in round 3 but says it’s not conclusive and depends how close you weigh it as a near fight finisher.
Luke agreed with the decision but didn’t go into detail and also mentioned control time (not sure if it was in reference to R3 specifically) as control only comes into scoring when effective striking and grappling as defined above are equal.
Weasle has his own round by round strike count and by heavy/medium/light which Arman out scored as pictured above (should be 20 total to 9) but also notes as most could see it wasn’t a significant out scoring by damage and depends how you weigh that vs the darce attempt. I personally think the darce attempt was impactful than what Arman did but have to rewatch as well.
Suprised that the polled writers scored it more for Arman by a 20-8 count if my eyes are correct. 8/28 is roughly 29% though so def not a conclusive win for Arman at any rate just as the split decision showed.
Hard to say for sure if Arman went limp but this moment could be argued as the most impactful moment in the round which if he did should be the same as a flash KO.
Hard to say for sure just as it’s hard to asses how hurt fighters are from strikes. But that isn’t really a defense to a choke. Reminds me of the Lawler Askren sequence.
I used to listen to Luke Thomas, but he’s a pompous dickhead who is never wrong about anything ever. That said, I thought Charles won the fight. He came closer to finishing.
Luke did say he was wrong in defending Nickal being on the main card. And yes I agree that the choke from Charles was the closer finisher and it’s not like Arman had the GNP he did in R2 by contrast.
This is actually a very legit defence to a darce. Oliveira wants to compress Arman’s shoulder into his neck and flattening out like this creates distance between the shoulder and neck. Also it doesnt let Charles use his weight to drive the shoulder into the neck in the same way he could from mount or if Arman was on his side.
Btw I wanted Charles to win but I knew Arman was safe here. I wanted to see Charles make some adjustments and really try to finish the darce, as i thought he would lose the decision.
Armani def made Charles tentative on the feet. On one hand, shows Charles can be more patient when striking but some more output would have been good.
I also thought round 3 showed the diff in styles with Armans wrestling based style and against anyone else aside from Islam, maybe he gets the back but I thought that was a risk that nearly coat him. He could have just played it safe and went more for control but when he went for the back, he played the bjj game and Charles reversed him and of course Charles went for the darce right away.
The fight should have also been a 5 rounder like Max Justin. But for being lower on the card for 300, it was relegated to a 3 rounder. Not sure who a 5 rounder would have favored more.