I'm going to defend Mamedov in some sense.
I think he outlanded Primus. None of them landed hard shots obviously because they were like, pitter patter from guard, but I think he had greater volume. In a fight that's hard to score, volume matters. People say he was defending subs and it's true. I think for me, it's really hard to quantify the value of an unsuccessful sub attempt. An unsuccessful sub is similar to a punch that misses, or a kick that misses, or a failed takedown attempt. If you don't finish a sub...usually there's not much damage. Like case by case matters, if it's super deep and it's cranking and maybe some muscles or joints are being stretched, or someone's neck is being constricted or cranked for a long period of time, yes there is some damage, but by and large, failed sub attempts have little impact on the defending fighter, and tire out the person going for them. I recognize the need to award credit for failed sub attempts because if we didn't, no one would go for subs. That being said, for failed subs I probably award minimal credit, unless they got very deep or seemed to be generating a lot of pressure, as most simply don't do anything intelligible to the fighter being attacked.
Primus is also unquestionably a much better fighter than Manny Muro, not that Mamedov's performance would have looked different in terms of what he would have attempted to do if he was fighting Muro, but he would have unquestionably controlled him easily and perhaps gotten a submission. So I think, he earned himself no fans, but he also unquestionably faced a stiffer test than Muro, Quiroz, Carey.
