Kris Moutinho disputes stoppage in Sean O'Malley loss: 'Let me go out on my shield'

Kris Moutinho is not happy with the way things went down in his UFC debut.

Moutinho (9-5 MMA, 0-1 UFC) suffered a third-round TKO loss in his octagon debut at UFC 264 on Saturday, losing to prospect Sean O’Malley in the opening fight of the main card at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. But on top of not getting his hand raised, he thinks his fight was stopped prematurely.

Moutinho showed tons of heart and durability against O’Malley (14-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC), but he was badly battered and dropped once during the bantamweight contest. Referee Herb Dean decided he had seen enough and called the fight with 27 seconds left in Round 3. Many online protested that Moutinho should’ve been given the chance to go the distance, while others argued the stoppage saved him from additional damage.

The 28-year-old agrees with the former, he said, and felt he was still game in the fight.

“I definitely think it was stopped too soon, but I’m not going to sit here and bash Herb Dean because he seems like a great guy and a great referee,” Moutinho told MMA Junkie Radio. “I’ve seen him make a lot of great calls, sometimes you make bad ones. I’ve seen guys who look like they’re going to die in that cage and not get stopped. You can watch the Rory MacDonald fight with Robbie Lawler where he went four and a half rounds with his face smashed and a bloody mess and they didn’t stop that fight.

“There was 30 seconds left, let me go out on my shield. I was still standing, I was still throwing punches, so yeah I’m a little upset.

“If it would’ve gone to decision, I still would’ve lost the fight, so it doesn’t really matter. A loss is a loss. I’m a very competitive person, everyone is talking to me like, ‘It was 10 days notice, don’t be upset about the loss,’ but I’m always upset about the loss. I’m a man and I got pride. It hurts to lose, I wanted his head on my wall. But I’ll go back, get better and the next guy is going to have to pay for it.”

A big talking point in the bout apart from O’Malley’s striking accuracy, Moutinho’s durability, and the controversial stoppage, was the pace of the contest. Moutinho marched forward the entire time and made O’Malley work. Many, including UFC commentators Joe Rogan and Daniel Cormier, thought O’Malley was slowing down despite still keeping a lede in the scorecards.

Moutinho said he felt O’Malley was getting tired and thinks a few adjustments in a second meeting would get his hand raised.

“I asked him the fight at one point, ‘You’re tired,’ and he was like, ‘Yeah,'” Moutinho said. “I know I got to the dude, I know he’s going to remember me for the rest of his life.

“He’s never going to want to fight me again and if he does, there’s a lot of different things I’m going to do in that fight if I ever fight him again. The leg kicks were working, I was landing a lot of leg kicks. I just should’ve kept going with them. My hands, I should’ve set them up with feints. There’s a lot of stuff me and my coaches will be working on and we’ll get better from this. It could be at 135 (pounds), it could be at 125, we’re just going to get better and keep going.”