ABU DHABI – Many viewers were surprised at what they heard when the official decision of his fight was read Saturday, but Rinat Fakhretdinov wasn’t.

Following his unanimous decision win over Carlos Leal at UFC 308, Fakhretdinov (23-1-1 MMA, 5-0-1 UFC) voiced his disagreement with the broadcast team that the judges got it wrong.

“Why were they surprised with the decision?” Fakhretdinov said to MMA Junkie and other reporters at his UFC 308 post-fight news conference. “… Really bad commentators. … First round was pretty close. It could’ve gone either way. I didn’t have any doubt the second or third round was mine. After your words, people will say again the Arabs bought the decision.”

According to MMA Decisions, 100 percent of voting media members scored the fight for Leal with more than 75 percent of viewers also scoring the fight for the Brazilian.

The court of public opinion is meaningless when it comes to the victory added to his win column. Fakhretdinov now rides a 23-fight unbeaten streak, the current longest in the promotion. Fakhretdinov thinks he’s ready for the best of the welterweight division and is eagerly awaiting the next call.

“It doesn’t matter,” Fakhretdinov said. “Anyone from the top 15, top 10, if you put in front of me will be the same. I will get the win. Maybe it’s not going to be easy. It’s going to be a hard win, but I’m going to win. … Even the day after tomorrow I can fight for the title if you give me the chance.”

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 308.

Video Details

Max Verstappen says “nothing changes” for him after Formula 1 drivers and the FIA sat down to discuss tweaks to the series’ racing guidelines.

In Friday’s driver meeting at the Mexican Grand Prix, drivers were seeking answers from the governing body on how racing incidents are judged and whether F1’s current guidelines on driver standards are still fit for purpose.

The trigger for the discussion was Verstappen’s fight with Lando Norris at last week’s US GP, in which McLaren driver Norris was penalised for overtaking Verstappen off the track, but the Red Bull man went unpunished for pushing both cars off in the first place.

It was discussed whether Verstappen should have been punished as well, or whether the Dutchman was in the right but exploiting a loophole that went against fair racing.

Following discussions, the FIA agreed to revisit the guidelines in time for the Qatar GP at the end of November.

But, as far as world champion Verstappen is concerned, he won’t change his approach until told otherwise.

“For me, in terms of racing, nothing changes,” he said. “Look, the rules can always be better, you should always strive for that, right? It’s never perfect. I understand that.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20, Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38, battle into turn 1

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

Advertisement

“But I think, where the problem starts is that on that track you can very easily just drive offline. And if there’s just a gravel pit, you never get into that situation either, because the car on the outside never brakes that late as there’s obviously the risk of going off. And the same on the inside, because then you always go in more carefully, so you never have that scenario.

“On certain circuits with a lot of run-off that is a problem and of course the FIA sees that too. They might also want to, like in Austria, put in a few gravel traps. That does help.”

Asked if he felt there was a move by rival drivers aimed specifically at curbing how he races, Verstappen said: ‘No. I just think they want to know themselves [what the rules are].”

Ferrari’s Mexico GP polesitter Carlos Sainz is hopeful that the solutions the FIA is working on for Qatar will improve the racing and lead to less confusion among drivers about what is allowed and what isn’t.

“I think it was a positive, productive meeting,” he said. “A lot of drivers opened up about how they felt about each situation and what we think is the best way forward.

“How you interpret the rules and those driving guidelines that the stewards are going to apply penalties with, they’re still the same coming into this weekend and probably I think they will be applied in a similar manner.

“But I think in Qatar we will have some solutions that hopefully will offer a better understanding for the driver and better racing in general. Hopefully it should be better.”

Additional reporting by Erwin Jaeggi

The impressive emergence of Brydon Carse is the latest stage in the rebuilding of an England pace attack in a previously unthinkable world without James Anderson and Stuart Broad.

Not everything is about the Ashes but, for this area of the team, that plane journey to Perth in November next year is paramount. Stokes is not the first England captain to put together a long-term plan to have a pace battery down under. He will know plenty before him have arrived for a gun battle armed only with pea shooters.

A year out, there is a long list of names that could find themselves in Australia: Carse, Matthew Potts, Mark Wood, Josh Tongue, Chris Woakes, Gus Atkinson, Olly Stone, Josh Hull, Dillon Pennington and John Turner.

What about Jofra Archer, whose latest return from injury is being painstakingly managed? It would be joyous to see Archer back in England whites and he has said that is his long-term goal.

How England get him to that point is ticklish. There are tighter restrictions around entering the Indian Premier League auction this year, to mitigate against players dipping in and out of lucrative deals.

For Archer to get back to the Test team, he will surely have to play for Sussex at some point. The most obvious time to do so would be in the early part of the 2025 summer, when the County Championship clashes with the IPL.

Then there is the wildcard, Dan Worrall. The 33-year-old, born in Melbourne and with three Australia ODI caps, qualifies to play for England in the spring thanks to a British passport and three seasons with Surrey. Alec Stewart has likened him to Anderson.

When Kent fast bowler Martin McCague, raised in Western Australia, played for England in the early 1990s the Aussie media called him “the rat that joined the sinking ship”. Just imagine the hullabaloo if Worrall is part of the England squad this time next year.

Robert Whittaker wants fans to know you haven’t seen the last of him.

The former UFC middleweight champion came out on the wrong end of a nasty submission Saturday at UFC 308 as he had his jaw crushed by undefeated contender Khamzat Chimaev. It was just the second time in Whittaker’s legendary career that he lost via tap-out and the first time since 2011, well before his UFC stardom.

Afterwards, Whittaker released a statement on the result via Instagram.

“It’s a tough gig sometimes but that’s the business,” Whittaker wrote. “Big congratulations to Khamzat, he was the better man tonight and that’s all there is to it. I felt great, everything was on point and I was ready.

“My jaw is good, but my teeth were moved in. It’s a good excuse to fix them properly now. I’m disappointed, but I come back better from every setback and every challenge so this is no different.”

Whittaker had been working to earn another shot at the UFC middleweight title and entered Saturday on a two-fight win streak with convincing performances against Ikram Aliskerov and Paulo Costa. Now, the 33-year-old finds himself going back to the drawing board and needing some serious rest time after the loss to Chimaev.

See Whittaker’s unedited comments below:

Thank you everyone for all the love and support. It’s a tough gig sometimes but that’s the business. Big congratulations to Khamzat, he was the better man tonight and that’s all there is to it. I felt great, everything was on point and I was ready. My jaw is good, but my teeth were moved in. It’s a good excuse to fix them properly now haha. I’m disappointed, but I come back better from every setback and every challenge so this is no different. I want to thank my team and everyone who supported me to get here. Time to go spend time with the family for a bit. Be back soon