Getty Image / Jeff Bottari
3 fights into today’s UFC Charlotte event, the MMA world witnessed one of the most bizarre fights they’ll ever see in the UFC.
The fight featured flyweights Ji Yeon Kim and Mandy Bohm and was a pretty standard affair early on.
The fight began with Kim immediately rocking Bohm with a strike before Bohm took her down. Kim was eventually able to reverse position and ended up spending a lot of time working from the top to close the round.
In round 2, Kim was the one who initiated the grappling and found quite a bit of success there.
Late in the round, Bohm was able to work her way on top to finish up the round. After the bell rang, Kim kicked Bohm from her back and ended up having a point taken away.
Ji Yeon Kim loses a point after kicking Mandy Bohm
https://t.co/WbUb1YZHGI— MMA Mania (@mmamania) May 13, 2023
in round 3, things really got bizarre. 2 minutes into the round, Kim was working for a takedown against the fence when she landed an illegal knee to Bohm’s head. The ref stepped in and Bohm immediately said she couldn’t continue, so he waved off the fight.
Ji Yeon Kim's corner: "Yeon let's go! Strike!"
Kim lands an illegal knee … and the fight is over. 🤣🤣🤣 https://t.co/UyhOmd9cYl pic.twitter.com/O5O2fp9c1L
— FTB VIDS (@anotherFTBacct) May 13, 2023
Then, after waving off the fight, he decided to take a point from Kim, despite deeming the knee unintentional. He made that decision after the judges had already submitted their scorecards, so they had to get their scorecards back to update them.
The whole process took way too long and then when the scorecards were finally read, they still seemingly got the decision wrong.
It was ruled a split decision in favor of Bohm, despite the fact that there’s a strong argument to be made that Kim won all 3 rounds.
The deciding round on the 2 scorecards that went to Bohm was the first round, where Kim landed the biggest strike of the round and then had more top control time.
All in all, it was a mess of a fight and not a good sign for what fans should expect for the rest of the day from the refs and judges.