Ahaggan steals the scores against Vorovski

Yassine Ahaggan’s volume and variety of output caused problems for Estonia’s Maxim Voroski from the very first round of their middlewweight fight on the GLORY 47 LYON Superfight Series card.    Fighting out of Team Alamos, a noted producer of high level fighters, he was able to keep Vorovski mostly at the range he wanted him and use his arsenal of kicks to rack up points while staying clear of Vorovski’s hands.    From the outset it was clear that Vorovski (29-4-1,15 KO’s) was looking to close Ahaggan (33-6, 22 KO’s) down and plant bombs on him, but Ahaggan didn’t feel like playing that game. He stayed mobile and looked to outfox Vorovski with his footwork and angles.    Vorovski stalked him around the ring. When he did let his hands go, he let them go with full force, but more volume of output would probably have served him better. Sometimes it seemed he was waiting on an opportunity for too long and then the moment would pass and Ahaggan would be out of there.   In contrast, Ahaggan was throwing strikes constantly: kicks, punches, knees. When there was an opening he took it and when there was no opening he threw anyway, looking to create one. He was busy for every minute of every round and his low kicks were particularly effective.   The FightMetric stats backed that impression up: over the course of the fight, Ahaggan threw roughly double the strikes Vorovski did, but Vorovski landed more strikes overall; much of Ahaggan's output landed on Vorovski's guard.   And so, as the seconds ticked away in the final round, an interesting question arose: would Ahaggan’s sheer volume of output register with the judges more than the lower-volume but higher-accuracy striking from Vorovski?    They would: Ahaggan found himself declared the winner by spit-decision. Four of the judges had it for him, one for Vorovski.    When the Estonian national looks at the statistics he will be very disappointed, but judging is an art rather than a science: the busier fighter can and often does take a decision over a more accurate but less busy opponent.