Sam 'Urai' Creasey 'massively disappointed' after being beaten via split decision in Oktagon title defence
Leighton Buzzard’s Sam ‘Urai’ Creasey was denied in his attempt to defend his Oktagon 125kg title on Saturday in the Czech Republic as he fell to a split decision against Georgia’s Beno Adamia.
Creasey, 37, was fighting at the Werk Arena in Trnek, Czech Republic, looking to defend the title he won last year against Welshman Aaron Aby.
But it wasn’t to be, as Adamia prevailed after five tightly-contested rounds.
Creasey took the lead on the scorecards after the third round, but Adamia battled back in round four and left round five with everything to play for.
Ultimately Adamia got the victory by the tightest of margins with scores of 48-47, 47-48, 48-47.
Creasey, who fights out of Elite Training Centre in Leighton Buzzard, said: “From the feedback I’ve had from fighters all over the world, everyone has fed back to me that they thought I was winning.
"It wasn’t a robbery, by any standard, it was a close fight but they all thought I had the victory in the bag. They thought as a minimum I had the first three rounds. The fourth round was more even and the fifth was definitely his.
"I’m massively disappointed. I felt I clearly landed the cleaner strikes on the feet with my counters. He was very aggressive coming forward, throwing big shots and lots of combinations of punches, but all of those punches were missing, only by a whisker but I was countering him every time with big shots that were stunning him.
"If you look at the statistics during the fight it shows that for the majority of the rounds, I had the effective strikes versus the amount of strikes he was throwing.
"So I get that perhaps from a fan’s perspective watching the fight they could possibly favour him as being the aggressor, but the judges ringside should have seen who was actually landing any shots there.
"I’m going to speak to my manager and work out what we do next from here, but I’ll be back in the gym training again very soon and hopefully getting back out there in May or June.
"Losing hurts a lot and I want my title back and I think I’ve got a legitimate challenge to say I want an immediate re-match given it was a split decision and a great deal of online support for me having won the fight.”