UFC Fight Night 99 results: Steven Ray takes split, edges Ross Pearson

BELFAST, Northern Ireland – The only thing all three judges seemed to agree on in the fight between Steven Ray and Ross Pearson is that one of the fighters won all three rounds.

Which one proved to be the tricky part, as two judges had it a clean sweep for Ray (20-6 MMA, 4-1 UFC) and another gave every round to Pearson (19-13 MMA, 11-10 UFC), resulting in a split-decision win for Ray after a very close fight.

The lightweight bout co-headlined today’s UFC Fight Night 99 event at SSE Arena Belfast in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The entire event streamed on UFC Fight Pass.

For Ray, the game plan was to stay on the move against Pearson, never standing in front of him for too long, and never allowing Pearson to get set enough to launch his own offense. It was an effective strategy in that it kept Pearson from building any momentum, but it also limited Ray to chipping away at a distance and ceding control of the cage to Pearson.

Some of Pearson’s best moments came when he managed to use leg kicks to inhibit Ray’s mobility, but he never seemed capable of cutting of the cage and trapping the elusive Ray in one spot.

For his part, Ray fired back with damaging kicks to the body, staying dangerous even on the move and never letting his feet rest in one spot for too long.

That clash of styles made for a close fight, and also a tricky one to score. Perhaps that’s why the judges were so varied in their opinions, with two 30-27 scores for Ray and one 30-27 mark for Pearson.

The victory is Ray’s first since a decision loss to Alan Patrick snapped a five-fight winning streak in September. Pearson has now lost three in a row.

Up-to-the-minute UFC Fight Night 99 results include:

• Steven Ray def. Ross Pearson via split decision (27-30, 30-27, 30-27)
• Alexander Volkov def. Timothy Johnson via split decision (29-28, 27-30, 29-28)
• Artem Lobov def. Teruto Ishihara via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
• Jack Marshman def. Magnus Cedenblad via TKO (strikes) – Round 2, 3:32
• Kyoji Horiguchi def. Ali Bagautinov via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
• Kevin Lee def. Magomed Mustafaev via technical submission (rear-naked choke) – Round 2, 4:31
• Amanda Cooper def. Anna Elmose via unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
• Justin Ledet def. Mark Godbeer via submission (rear-naked choke) – Round 1, 2:16
• Zak Cummings def. Alexander Yakovlev via submission (armbar) – Round 2, 4:02
• Marion Reneau def. Milana Dudieva via TKO (punches) – Round 3, 3:03
• Brett Johns def. Kwan Ho Kwak via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
• Abdul Razak Alhassan def. Charlie Ward via knockout (punches) – Round 1, 0:53

For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 99, check out the UFC Events section of the site.

(MMAjunkie’s Matt Erickson and Mike Bohn contributed to this report on site in Belfast.)