SAN JOSE, Calif. – Lightweight Gesias "JZ" Cavalcante was sure he'd done enough to earn a decision victory over Josh Thomson at this past Saturday's "Strikeforce: Diaz vs. Noons 2" event.
Instead, Thomson earned a unanimous-decision victory, and though two judges scored it 29-28, one judge surprisingly gave him all three rounds.
"When they said 30-27, I said, 'Come on, that's complete bull [expletive],'" Cavalcante told
MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) afterward.
"Everybody keeps telling me I won," he added. "I feel like I won the first and the third round. But I have to watch the tape."
In the evening's co-main event, Cavalcante (15-4-1 MMA, 0-1 SF) and Thomson (18-3 MMA, 9-2 SF) waged a back-and-forth scrap that mostly took place on the mat. Both fought off submission attempts early on – Cavalcante used a tight guillotine and Thomson an arm-triangle choke – and traded dominant position during the 15-minute affair. Cavalcante, though, earned the lead on MMAjunkie.com's scorecard with an overall score of 29-28.
Fight statistic service CompuStrike gave Thomson the lead over Cavalcante in overall strikes landed (76 percent to 62 percent), ground strikes landed (83 percent to 69 percent), and dominant positions (two to one), though Cavalcante led in takedown attempts (two out of three vs. two out of five), knockdowns (one to zero) and leg strikes landed (92 percent to 84 percent).
Afterward, Thomson praised Cavalcante and said he disagreed with the judge who gave him all three rounds.
"I felt this might go the distance, but no way I won that fight 30-27," he said.
Although Cavalcante doesn't fault Thomson, he thinks the former champion's status as hometown hero may have played a part in the judges' call.
"That's always an influence," he said. "He comes back (to Strikeforce) and [almost] nobody knows me. I should have finished the fight. I had the opportunity to do it, and I missed it."
Still, the American Top Team product and DREAM veteran is frustrated by what he sees as a growing problem in MMA.
"Lately, they've been doing a lot of bad, bad [decisions]," he said. "If it keeps going like that, it's going to be really bad for the sport. Like with Jessica Aguilar, who just fought in Bellator, [the judges] dropped her fight with a bad decision. (Ed. note: Zoila Frausto defeated Aguilar by split decision at Bellator 31.)
"I have a couple of friends that get angry. They don't like to see those kinds of things. People like to watch because it's fun and entertaining, but not [with] bad judgement. That's something they've got to try to fix ... because it's a great sport, and everybody comes and fights hard."
Cavalcante is unsure of his next career move, though from the sound of it, he won't be fighting in Japan any time soon. Prior to his meeting with Thomson, he defeated Katsunori Kikuno in July's DREAM.16 event and said he has yet to be paid for his efforts.
"[Expletive] DREAM, man," he said. "I'm not going to say I'm done, but I need to get paid. I need people to show the respect [I] need.
"But Strikeforce, I've got to see what they're going to do after this. I feel good. I'm healthy. A little break, and maybe (I'll fight) at the end of the year or the beginning of next year. I've got to take time to check it out."
For complete coverage of "
Strikeforce: Diaz vs. Noons 2," check out the
MMA Events section of MMAjunkie.com.