John McCarthy has no problem with Jason Herzog taking a point from Deiveson Figueiredo in his fight against Brandon Moreno.
In the third round of the flyweight title fight, Figueiredo landed a low blow that had Moreno on the ground coughing. Although it was the first low blow, the champ did poke the Mexican in the eye earlier in the fight, so Herzog ended up taking a point.
The point deduction ended up having an impact on the fight as well as the bout was ruled a draw. Without the deduction, Figueiredo would have won but for McCarthy, he says the point deduction was the right call.
“That point deduction is absolutely the way it’s supposed to be done,” McCarthy said on his “Weighing In podcast (h/t MMAJunkie). “A lot of people say, ‘That was the first groin strike.’ It doesn’t matter. Did it alter Brandon Moreno and make it to where Figueiredo actually had an advantage based upon a foul? Yeah. You want to get kicked in the nuts? We’ll give you a point.”
“It sucks, and so when he takes the point, what he’s doing is he’s trying to even that playing field back out. Figueiredo has got an advantage doing something that was illegal. I’m going to try evening it out. My only way of evening this out in this situation is to take a point. It’s what he did, and it was the right call.”
With the fight being declared a draw, it is expected Figueiredo and Moreno will rematch sometime in 2021. Both men fought twice in three weeks so they will get some well-deserved time off.
Ultimately, although some fans were mad about the result, John McCarthy believes a draw and the point deduction were all the right calls. And, nobody knows the rules more than McCarthy given he helped write them.
