Sherdog’s 2025 Robbery of the Year

Mairon Santos is on an impressive five-fight win streak on paper, but the Brazilian probably shouldn’t be.

The 25-year-old Xtreme Couture product has largely impressed inside the Octagon, especially with recent knockouts of Muhammadjon Naimov and Kaan Ofli. However, his first fight of 2025 was highly controversial, as Santos took what many thought to be an unearned split decision win over Francis Marshall. While “The Legend” fairly won his other two fights during the past 12 months, he still takes home the dubious honor of winning Sherdog’s “Robbery of the Year” for 2025.

The fight between Santos and Marshall took place as part of the UFC 313 prelims on March 8 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Marshall immediately showed he was the harder-hitting fighter by stunning Santos on the feet and would later score a knockdown in the first round. While Santos was the busier fighter on the feet as the fight went on, Marshall scored takedowns in the second and third rounds and landed the more damaging blows. Despite what everyone saw, only judge Derek Cleary scored the fight for Marshall: 30-27, no less. Both Chris Lee and David Lethaby gave Santos the last two rounds to win the fight 29-28.

All three Sherdog scorers saw the fight 30-27 in Marshall’s favor, which was the most popular score on MMADecisions.com. According to the judging database, all media scorecards had the fight in the favor of Marshall, with 10 of 13 giving him all three rounds. Fan voting was also overwhelmingly in Marshall’s favor, as 62.4% of voters thought Marshall won 30-27 and an additional 23.4% of fans thought he won the fight 29-28.

Even Santos didn’t feel he won the fight after he viewed it.

“When the fight was over, I felt I clearly won, but that wasn’t the truth,” Santos told MMA Fighting. “In situations like that, I think takedowns make a difference, so I went back and saw that he had won it. I think it would have been a better decision, but the judges said I won, and I have to live with that. I’m taking it as a loss even though I won, so let’s move on and get better next time.”

Santos-Marshall was far from the only robbery in mixed martial arts in 2025. Aiemann Zahabi’s controversial decision win over Jose Aldo and Nathaniel Wood’s unanimous decision victory over Jose Delgado also received multiple votes from Sherdog.com staff.