Jake Matthews is heading back into the cage this weekend in Macau with the memory of a fight he still cannot replay in his favor. He thought he had finished Neil Magny with a mounted guillotine in the final seconds of the first round, only for the sequence to be reversed on the spot and the bout to go on.
That strange turn has followed Matthews into his return against Carlston Harris, a matchup set for the UFC Macau main card. The 32-year-old said earlier this week that there is no way to go back and change what happened, and that he has tried not to let the moment linger over his preparation.
The disputed finish came late in Matthews’ last outing with Magny, when the 10-second clacker sounded as he had the choke locked in. Broadcast analyst Paul Felder acknowledged how tight the hold looked, and Perdios leaned in and said, “He’s out!” before placing both hands on Matthews’ back to signal that he should let go. Matthews complied, the horn sounded, and Magny got back to his feet in frustration after the halt was treated as if the round had ended. The referee then ruled the round over and instructed the fighters to continue.
Mathews later lost by submission in the third round, turning what had felt like a finish into one of the oddest endings the UFC has had to sort through. It left him with the kind of loss that sits differently from a clean defeat, because for a moment he had already started to think about the win.
“But you are right: the relief that comes off you when you think that you’ve won a fight…” Matthews said of the moment. He added that the adrenaline crash can be severe, saying it can take two weeks to recover from a fight’s adrenaline dump. “For me to rally in the second round and dominate the way that I did makes me proud to have been able to do that. I pushed hard in the second round to get the finish because I knew that was all I had in me. As soon as that round ended, I knew I was in trouble,” he said.
He also admitted the split-second confusion may have cost him a chance to make his case. “Again, it’s one of those things you cannot go and change, but in hindsight, I probably just should have protested and said, ‘Nah!’” Matthews said. “We train, and when we’re told to go, we fight, so you’re not thinking straight. I should have sat on the canvas and said, ‘No — you can disqualify me if you want, but I’m gonna protest and take a stand.’”
The sequence stands out because the UFC had not previously seen a premature fight-halt decision discarded on the fly and the bout continue anyway. Matthews has moved past the result as best he can, but the question left behind is why the call was handled that way in the first place. On Saturday, he gets a new opponent and a new setting in Macau, where the only result that will matter is the one he can control.
