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For 15 minutes, the two men battled it out, Collier frequently being the one initiating the engagements and appearing to get the better of the exchanges, while Arlovski was content to look for counters and complain to the referee about the two men frequently clashing heads as they looked to exchange.
“That really pissed me off because we were both leading with our heads, but I wasn’t swooping my head into his head,” Collier said when asked about Arlovski’s gamesmanship. “There were a couple times he caught me in the temple where I was like, ‘Damn! I don’t know how many more of those I can take and still stay standing,’ because he was rocking me with those headbutts.
“He busted my nose open real bad, which made it look worse; made it look like I got damage inflicted on me. But other than my nose busted open from his headbutt, I really wasn’t beat up, and he’s over here like, ‘He keeps headbutting me!’”
UFC 279 Embedded: Episode 1 | Episode 2
A couple months removed from the fight and on the cusp of returning to the Octagon, he can laugh about the interactions and Arlovski playing to the officials but, in the moment, it seemed to contribute to how the fight was scored.
Standing in the center of the cage following the contest, Collier was confident he’d done enough to earn the victory, and his belief was bolstered when the first scorecard read aloud was a 30-27 in his favor. But the next two judges scored the fight 29-28 for the former heavyweight champion, resulting in Arlovski earning the victory, and Collier collapsing to his knees in disbelief.
“It was definitely frustrating. I thought I won every round, and then to hear the first judge say, ’30-27,’ I really thought I had it in the books, but then it was 29-28 for Arlovski, and I was just like, ‘Come on, man!’