Jose Aldo came on the short end of a split decision against Mario Bautista on the pay-per-view portion of UFC 307 at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Aldo was disappointed with the decision, apparently believing he did enough to win. Others in the MMA community – including your own – agreed with him. After the official judges’ scorecard was read, several people in the MMA community responded to X with spicy, pro-Aldo posts.

Lightweight contender Renato Moicano kept it short and sweet. He called it a ‘robbery’.

Ruling MMA’s scorecard, which collects scores from users online, showed Aldo as the winner of two of the three rounds.

Veteran MMA columnist Shaheen Al-Shatti said he scored the fight 30-24 for Aldo. He was joking, but he thought Aldo deserved the decision.

A former Aldo foe, Conor McGregor, was very vocal about the decision and the referee’s unwillingness to separate the fighters. At the same time, Bautista chose to lean against the Brazilian icon on the Octagon fence.

Aldo won the second and third rounds on my scorecard, which would have given him a 29-28 victory. Judge Chris Lee scored for Aldo, but Derek Cleary and Mike Bell gave the same score to Bautista.

The question you might be asking if you haven’t seen the fight is how Bautista won. He won the fight thanks to power of control, but it didn’t come from takedowns. Bautista missed all ten of his takedown attempts, but he successfully held Aldo against the fence.

I didn’t score for him in the last two rounds because he did no damage during those sequences and made very few attacks. Bautista didn’t even try to submit. He was content to lay into Aldo, which drew a chorus of boos from the crowd.

If you look at the fight stats below, you’ll see that Aldo defeated Bautista with significant strikes in the last two rounds, and he also landed at a higher percentage in all three rounds.

It’s easy to understand why Aldo was upset. However, Aldo’s reluctance to move away from the fence cost him. Had he been more active in that role, the outcome might have been different.

Here’s a look at all the results from UFC 307.

UFC 307 Pay-Per-View Card Results

• (c) Alex Pereira def. Khalil Rountree Jr. via TKO in Round 4 – Pereira retains the UFC light heavyweight championship.
• Julianna Peña def. (c) Raquel Pennington via split decision (29-28×2, 28-29) – Pena wins the UFC Women’s Bantamweight Championship
• Mario Bautista def. Jose Aldo via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
• Roman Dolidze def. Kevin Holland via TKO at 5:00 of round 1 (Netherlands was injured in the first round and could not continue)
• Kayla Harrison def. Ketlen Vieira via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)

UFC 307 Preliminary Card Results

• Joaquin Buckley def. Stephen Thompson via KO at 2:17 of round 3
• Iasmin Lucindo def. Marina Rodriguez via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
• Alexander Hernández def. Austin Hubbard via split decision (27-30, 29-28, 29-28)
• Cesar Almeida def. Ihor Potieria via unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 30-27)

UFC 307 Early Preliminary Card Results

• Ryan Spann def. Ovince Saint Preux via submission at 1:35 of round 1 (Guillotine)
• Tecia Pennington defeated Carla Esparza via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 30-27)
• Court McGee def. Tim Means via submission at 3:19 of round 1 (Rear-Naked Choke)