Aldo: I thought I had won after Round 1

There is an undecided fight in mixed martial arts – which fans are more emotional – Brazilian or Irish? In the main event of UFC 179 at the end of the first round the fans were so loud that no one heard the bell. Some fans watching on television were unaware of the decibel level, and thought Jose Aldo should have been disqualified for nearly knocking Mendes out.

Here is what it looked like (0:18 mark)

For his part, Aldo thought he had won the fight.

“When the round was over, I thought the fight was over,” said Aldo as transcribed by Guilherme Cruz for MMAFighting. “When I connected the punches and the referee stepped in, I thought it was over. I was about to run into the crowd, but I’m glad I didn’t [laughs].”

UFC president Dana White appeared on UFC Tonight and told Ariel Helwani what happened.

“[Mendes] got hit after the bell,” said White. “I think that threw a lot of people off. People were going crazy that watched it on TV. But anybody that knows that was here live, you couldn’t hear it. I didn’t hear the bell go off.”

“I don’t think [the referee] heard [the bell]. I didn’t hear it. I didn’t know either till after. My phone was blowing up from people were going crazy that were watching on TV saying how dirty that was that he got hit with two punches after, but it was so loud in this arena you couldn’t hear anything.”

Referee Marc Goddard confirmed that it was not possible to hear.

“At times tonight, I could not even hear ten second warnings,” tweeted Goddard. “I could not even hear the bell. I had to watch the clock & the fighters. Apparently that makes me the worst in the world. Never mind the other 25 mins I done… It’s all about the 2 seconds I could not even hear!”

UFC president Dana White had a good suggestion.

“We need to put an ear piece in the refs ear so they can get a 10 second countdown,” he tweeted.

Burt Watson needs to get ref earpieces for Brazil. And Ireland. The rest of the world can make do with the current process.

And the emotion of the Brazilian crowd lends power to the Brazilian fighters, as demonstrated by the remarkable win rate for hometown fighters.

“With this sold out arena singing and chanting, I feel I’m unbeatable,” said Aldo. “I respect everybody, but you have to kill me to defeat me in front of this crowd.”

And let’s give Mendes the last word, as he was after all the man who got fouled.

He rung my bell for sure, said Mendes. I was rushing to get my wits back, but holy s—, that was fun.��

Yeah it was.