Watch: Kennedy and Romero get heated backstage following UFC 178

Middleweights Tim Kennedy and Yoel Romero put on quite the show in Vegas this past Saturday night. Both men earned a well deserved $50,000 fight of the night bonus check, but the fight itself didn’t come without controversy.

Kennedy had Romero rocked at the end of the second round after landing some devastating uppercuts. As you can see in the .gif below, Kennedy did grab a hold of the inside of Romero’s right glove with his left hand while landing both uppercuts before he knocked him around until the bell sounded.

2 seconds more and the fight would’ve been stopped by ‘Big’ John McCarthy without question. Instead, Romero would be given 30 seconds in his corner to recover plus about 30 more due to a glob a vaseline, bad translation, and some sneaky corner work.

Can you blame Yoel’s corner for doing whatever it takes to win? Nah, not really. When it comes to your fighter or a teammate the mantra is “whatever it takes”. Does that mean it’s fair or that ‘Big’ John McCarthy shouldn’t have called off the fight when Romero refused to answer the bell? Of course not. The fight should have been called, just like Kennedy shouldn’t have grabbed the inside of Romero’s gloves. Whether or not both actions were done consciously can only be confirmed by the two men involved. In the heat of action, things move a whole heck of a lot faster.

With Chris Weidman and Vitor Belfort being delayed until February there’s no reason not to have an immediate rematch between Kennedy and Romero to settle this thing once and for all. Luke Rockhold (if he can get past Bisping), Lyoto Machida (who takes on C.B. Dollaway to close out the year in Brazil) and ‘Jacare’ Souza are still in front of both men in the official UFC rankings. Unless the UFC wants to give Romero to Souza, there is no other fight for either man that makes sense. Plus you now have built-in heat between these two men, more than enough to sell this as a future Fight Night headliner of FOX Sports 1 or Fight Pass in early 2015. Expect the UFC to do the right thing and gives these men another go round.