Bruno Silva To Appeal Controversial UFC Fight Night Atlantic City Loss, Accuses Chris Weidman Of 'Acting In Bad Faith'

Bruno Silva isn't going to take the controversial ending to his and Chris Weidman's bout at Saturday's UFC Fight Night in Atlantic City fight lying down, and he will be filing for an appeal to overturn the fight to a no contest.

Multiple eye pokes plagued the Weidman vs. Silva encounter, including a double eye poke that resulted in both fighters receiving a hard warning. A little bit after that, however, an unintentional eye poke by Weidman led to him being able to finish Silva with some ground-and-pound to seemingly score a TKO win.

Silva immediately got up and protested the result, urging referee Gary Copeland to look at the big screen and view the replay.

Ultimately, while Weidman was announced as the winner by TKO in the cage, his win will officially go down as a technical decision. UFC commentator Brendan Fitzgerald told the home audience that the commission in New Jersey elected to not give a TKO but score the fight from the point of the stoppage, with Weidman earning 30-27s on all three judges' scorecards.

Silva Hopes For Loss To Be Overturned, Feels Weidman Won't Accept Rematch

Silva told MMA Fighting in a recent interview that he will be filing an appeal, feeling the referee and commission acted in favor of Weidman, a New York native who began his career with the local Ring of Combat promotion in Atlantic City.

The fight marked Weidman's second fight since returning from the broken leg he suffered at UFC 261, which forced him into a two-year layoff.

"We think it’s hard for Chris Weidman to accept a rematch, but the no contest would be fair," Silva said. "Let’s see what the UFC does. I just want things done the right way, the fair way. I went there and fought and you didn’t see any malice from my part.

"I went to the medicals backstage and my cornerman said they had changed the result and I felt relieved because there was no knockout. I thought they were going to rule it a no contest, but then he said it was a unanimous win. I didn’t understand it. He poked me in the eye in the second round, poked me in the third, and it’s still an unanimous decision win for him?"

Weidman responded to the controversy during his post-fight interview in the cage with Michael Bisping by saying that if Silva had been poked in the eye, he couldn't drop to the ground as he did before the stoppage.

"Blindado," however, did not take kindly to the American's words, given that he was poked in the eye three times during the fight.

"Chris Weidman acted in bad faith," Silva said. "It's said [by the referee] at the locker room that you can’t fight with your fingers pointing straight, it should be either up or with your hands closed. He spent the entire fight with his fingers pointing at my face, and still celebrated as if he had knocked me out.

"He knows what he did, but being a man is at risk of extinction. No way he would say he's wrong, that we could do a rematch. He won’t do that. I don’t even expect that. Only men would do that, people with character. I won't stay here disrespecting him either but when we fight again, it’s going to be different. There will be no loyalty anymore."

It remains to be seen what will come of his planned appeal.