Alex Pereira's next fight should be an immediate trilogy rematch because the last two…

Yeah, all right, so Brunson’s manager did the full-on “WTF was that?” face at ringside halfway through round three—like he’d just watched his lad get hit by a tram—but here’s the thing: you don’t torch judges on that alone. I’ve seen corner crews do the exact same panic theatrics when their guy’s actually still in it; nerves and adrenaline, pure theatre. What matters is what actually happened inside the ropes, not who gasped loudest on the Fox feed.

You reckon Brunson’s manager was just doing theatrics? nah mate 😱 that face wasn’t “panic”, it was “I JUST WATCHED MY GUY GET PUNCHED IN THE SOUL” 🔥 Pereira bulldozed him round 3 like a freight train through tissue paper, every shot landed clean, judges had their eyes glued to their score sheets like they were watching paint dry 💪 what fresh hell else would that gurning have been for? clean shot, rocked him, cage lights flickered—derek looked like a newborn kitten in a typhoon 😬 trio on the spot? deffo, but the rematch’s over too—give us the trilogy NOW before anyone forgets what actually happened!

Ben’s right about Brunson looking like he’d just been sucker-punched by a ghost round three—no theatrics in the foaming jaw and flattened face. But let’s look at the score line after round two of Pereira vs Brunson II: Pereira out-landed Brunson 50-16 in total strikes and 38-12 in significant strikes. That wasn’t just a lead, that was a dismantling. After round three it’s 71-25 and 47-19, so Pereira padded the totals while Brunson’s output flatlined. I could be wrong, but when a judge’s card at fight’s end shows anything other than a landslide after numbers like that, the real question isn’t whether the judges blinked—it’s why everyone still pretends the trio didn’t just fail a basic arithmetic test.

saw that face live, mate. brunsons manager looked like he’d just been handed a court summons not a scorecard update. back when i was knocking around the capoeira gyms in newcastle’s rough end of town, you’d get the odd ref who’d nod off mid-fight if the crowd got too rowdy—proper old school let’s-get-through-the-night attitude. but even then, they weren’t allowed to just… ignore a freight train rolling through main street. judges in the 2010s had spines like wet paper when they knew the local boy was getting robbed (auld glasgow tragedy springs to mind), but these lads in vegas? they signed up for a front row seat to history, not a nap in the cheap seats.

You ever see Brunson in the post-fight presser after Pereira II? Dude looked like he was three rounds into a Mike Tyson documentary instead of a 30-second mic check.

Tell me, when I saw Brunson’s manager’s face live—this wasn’t theatre, no way—it was the look of a man who’d just watched 22 minutes of pure demolition and still had to sit there watching the scorecards crawl along like they were made of slow-drying glue. But here’s the thing that still niggles: after every one-sided beating Pereira’s ever handed out, we get the same cycle. Everyone sees the damage, hears the crowd, feels Brunson’s manager clutching his stomach like he’s the one who just took the hooks—but then we’re left waiting weeks for the next card while the commission goes through its little “review” routine. Why aren’t these judges called in the morning for a swift IQ test before they’re ever allowed near another UFC score sheet? I remember watching Pereira vs Adesanya II from a poky flat in Bondi where the Wi-Fi cut out twice mid-round—even with buffering artefacts, the damage was unmistakable. The real scandal isn’t the cards; it’s that we treat these gigs like guest spots instead of consequences.

Tell me you’ve seen Brunson’s manager and not just *read* the man’s face like you’re parsing a balance sheet, because I don’t believe it. The way his jaw hit the floor mid-round three wasn’t some drama-queen reflex—it was the look of a man who’d just watched his fighter get turned into alphabet soup inside twenty-two minutes flat. And let’s be honest here: Brunson’s own reaction after the bell in the presser? That wasn’t bravado or “I’ll get ‘em next time” talk—it was the face of a guy who still can’t believe he walked out of that cage in one piece after getting railroaded by a freight train with hands. But here’s where it gets properly galling. These judges in Vegas sat on their collective thumbs like they were auditioning for a nap-friendly retirement home while Brunson’s output flatlined from round two onward. Pereira out-landed him 71-25 in total strikes by fight’s end—71 to 25!—and the cards still only gave him a split? Even with Brunson’s manager looking like he’d just been handed a subpoena for damages, these scorekeepers had the nerve to split hairs. I mean, explain to me how a judge can watch Brunson take a clean liver shot in the second, gasp, then score the round 10-8 for Brunson the same way you’d watch a sunflower follow the sun. There’s no calculus here; it’s arithmetic failure on a Vegas marquee. Yet we’re stuck in this endless loop where every post-fight review drags on for weeks, commissions nod gravely, and we’re left twiddling our thumbs waiting for the inevitable “no changes” announcement. Why aren’t these clowns pulled aside before the next event and asked to recite the alphabet backward under oath? Because that’s the only math check they’d fail at this point.