Photo: The inexplicable scorecard with a 48-47 Paul Felder win over Rafael dos Anjos

There’s little reason to deny Paul Felder gave a gritty performance in the UFC Fight Night 182 main event.

After all, Felder (17-6 MMA, 9-6 UFC) took the headliner against former lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos (30-13 MMA, 19-11 UFC) on just five days’ notice – with plenty of weight to cut. He saved the card.

In the fight, purely from a statistical standpoint, Felder was in the thing. He landed more significant strikes than dos Anjos and was right in the hunt for total strikes. But dos Anjos’ six takedowns helped lead to a lot of ground control time.

By the time five rounds were over, the presumption was dos Anjos had mostly cruised to 50-45 scorecards.

He got two of them.

The third? Judge Chris Lee gave the fight to Felder, 48-47. On his card, Felder won the middle three rounds.

At best, most observers seemed to think maybe Felder would get the fourth round. But you’d be hard-pressed to find many who were giving him Rounds 2 and 3, too. In fact, of the MMA analysts tracked by MMADecisions.com, 14 of 20 had dos Anjos at 50-45, and the other six had him 49-46, including MMA Junkie.

A win is a win is a win as far as dos Anjos is concerned in his return to lightweight. But he probably held his breath a little when Felder’s 48-47 winning card was read.

To see dos Anjos’ scorecard, as well as the others from UFC Fight Night 182, check out the gallery above.