UFC
Jose Aldo says late shots on Chad Mendes weren't intentional after first round, he just didn't hear the horn
Oct 26, 2014 - 12:15:57 PM Jose Aldo says late shots on Chad Mendes weren't intentional after first round, he just didn't hear the horn

DISCUSS ALL THIS IN OUR NEW MMATORCH FORUM

...OH, ONE MORE THING - PLEASE BOOKMARK US & VISIT DAILY!

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

While the Jose Aldo-Chad Mendes main event at UFC 179 on Saturday night was a fantastic title bout, there was some slight controversy early in the fight.

At the end of the first round, after Aldo had already knocked Mendes down once, he landed a two-punch combo just after the horn that send Mendes back again. While the after-the-horn strikes could have warranted at the very least a warning, and as much as a point deduction or disqualification, they weren't acknowledged by the referee.

However, it appears there was a fairly reasonable explanation: it was too loud in the arena.

UFC President Dana White said as much, and Aldo said after the event that he didn't hear the horn at all, and thought the ref was stopping the fight when he stepped in after the second knockdown.

"After that first round, a couple people came over and started saying, 'He hit him with two punches after the bell. That was late,'" White said after the event (via MMAjunkie.com). "I didn't hear anything. It was so loud in that arena, I didn't hear it. It didn't look like the referee heard it."

"It was like deja vu," Aldo added, saying he thought it was ending the same as in their first meeting. "When it was about to end right there, I thought I had already won the fight. So I landed two punches, and the ref got in front of me, and I thought I had won, but the round was over."

"I heard the crowd. Everyone was screaming, and I thought I was going to be able to run into the crowd again, but they put me back in, and we had to restart the fight."

Aldo managed to win three of the remaining four rounds after that huge start to the fight, holding onto his Featherweight Championship once again.

Penick's Analysis: That crowd was in a frenzy from the outset, and given Aldo had already knocked Mendes down once in that first round, it's very easy to believe that Aldo simply didn't hear the horn to hold up on his punches. The ref realized it a split second too late, and two more punches got through. It would have been one thing had the fight ended there, because there would have been more of a reason for Mendes to have a grievance, but the fight continued, and Mendes performed relatively well despite the loss.