Gillian Robertson submitted Piera Rodriguez with a second round armbar on the prelims of UFC Kansas City, and despite Rodriguez’s protest claiming she never tapped, the official result was deemed a “verbal submission” by the referee.
Over the past weekend, Gillian Robertson scored an impressive win by submitting Piera Rodriguez with a second-round armbar during the UFC Kansas City prelims. However, the victory was not without controversy, as Rodriguez protested that she never tapped out after referee Keith Peterson stopped the bout. The video replay of the incident was inconclusive, but the official result was declared as a “verbal submission.” Robertson firmly believes there is no cause for debate, saying, “the ref said verbal submission. That was what it was deemed. You can’t see her face, you can’t see her mouth. I don’t know what the ref heard.”
Robertson further dismissed any controversy by pointing out her overall dominance throughout the fight. She stated, “I think most people acknowledged what I was able to do. I was dominating the fight anyway. On the scorecards, I won the first round. The second round I might have got a 10-8 if it finished. So unless she came out and knocked me out in the third, there was no way she was going to win that fight.” Not only did this win finally earn Robertson her first Performance of the Night bonus, but it also marked her first victory as a UFC strawweight.
After joining UFC in 2017, Robertson, also known as “The Savage,” exclusively competed as a flyweight and holds the records for the most finishes (seven) and most submission wins (seven) in the UFC flyweight division. However, after consulting the UFC Performance Institute (PI) and undergoing a bone density scan last March, Robertson concluded she was better suited for the strawweight division due to her smaller size. The PI nutritionist helped to make the weight cut from 125 to 115 an easy process, allowing her to make strawweight her new “home” for the foreseeable future.
Now competing in what many consider the best weight division in women’s MMA, Robertson is eager to face the top-ranked strawweight opponents and rise in the rankings. When asked about her next opponents, she confidently stated, “Honestly, anybody top-15 I would be down for. I’m just trying to move up the rankings. If I want to be champ, I’ve got to beat them all, of I’ve got to be better than them all, so I don’t care who they give me, I just want someone [in the] top-15.”