Spitgate! Did ‘Canejo’ Hock One In Buys’ Face?

A one sided fight ended in controversy amidst accusations of spitting. We analyze the footage of the final moments between Buys and Ruiz.

UFC Vegas 22 was a bit of an off kilter night of fighting. While there were some tremendous scraps and highlight reel finishes, the biggest headlines from the card come from the two bouts where the least happened. In the main event, Kevin Holland laughed his way to a loss at the hands of Derek Brunson, who kept his flashy opponent pinned to the mat for the majority of their 25 minute fight.

Earlier on the main card, what was supposed to be a showcase fight for highly touted Dana White Contender Series signee Cheyanne Buys turned into a debacle as her opponent Montserrat “Canejo” Ruiz caught Buys in a bully headlock and tossed her to the ground repeatedly, holding her in that position from bell to bell.

Outside of being a clinic on how to embarrass your opponent with a simple scarf hold, the fight was nothing to write home about. Until the end when something happened at the final bell to make Cheyanne Buys lose her composure and try to confront Ruiz, yelling “I’ll follow you home, bitch!”

(Great job as always trying to censor everything, ESPN.)

After, Buys claimed that Ruiz had spit in her face.

“To all my friends and family I just want to say I am sorry for losing my cool after the fight,” Buys wrote on Instagram. “I have never in my life been spit on by a opponent that I gave nothing but respect to.”

But a closer look at the finishing moments show Ruiz looking like she … might spit on Buys? But no spit being spat? Where are the ‘8K cameras’ when you need them?

“No, I didn’t spit on her at all,” Ruiz claimed through a translator at the post-fight press conference. “It probably was the momentum. I’m not the kind of person that likes to spit, and if you spit on someone, that’s crossing the line, and that’s not something I was thinking about doing.”

But if Buys still wants to follow Ruiz home, we’d advise she learns how to defend a headlock first.