(Photo by Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images)
It’s been three days since UFC 104, and internet MMA fans are showing no signs of slowing down. How could they - there’s controversy to dispute, damn it!
What, you haven’t heard? Firstly, let me welcome you back from your remote mountain hideout. In case you were wondering, your side lost World War Two, man has landed on the moon, and Dick Clark is still alive.
Oh, and Lyoto Machida retained his UFC Light-Heavyweight championship against Maurico “Shogun” Rua via a unanimous decision in a close fight. Unanimous, in that for once the whole of the oftentimes disagreeable MMA fan base is unanimous in their disagreement. Message boards were crashed in the minutes following the fight, as enraged fans flocked to their computers to voice their displeasure. It hasn’t relented - kicking up a whole new (and much needed) round of debate on the proper conduct of Mixed Martial Arts.
I’ll get to why in a moment, as well as my thoughts on the most debated fight of 2009 (I‘m calling it). But first, let’s take a look at the biggest, most important and (hopefully) most telling lesson coming out of Saturday’s event.
Lesson #1: We need a comprehensive overhaul of the MMA scoring system in North America
Make no mistake - there have been some very poor decisions in MMA.
Bisping/Hamill was a quite a shock. Griffin/Rampage stirred up a lot of debate when Forrest nabbed the title. The recent Cerrone/Henderson fight in the WEC was heavily debated in all circles for days following the event.
It’s a subjective argument, folks. Do we score Rampage’s power punches over the volume of Forrest’s leg kicks? Do we score the positional control of Henderson over the submission attempts of Cerrone? Do we score the more damaging shots of Hamill over the funny accent of Bisping? Apparently not on that last one.
Still, you get my point - controversial decisions are a frequent occurrence in combat sports in general, and MMA in particular. To my mind, the answer isn’t in debating the merits of the individual fighters of looking at every fight in exacting, Fight Metric level detail to see who won. Such things are the actions of Monday morning quarterbacks - and that’s well and good, but they don’t help judges making a decision the night of the fight. These judges don’t have the benefit of commentary, instant replay, and have only seconds to score a fight based on very vague, subjective criteria - for instance, how does one score “Octagon Control” in the Machida/Shogun fight? No matter what you answer, it’s subjective and can be argued - such is the very nature of the scoring system.
Which is exactly why we (“we“ being the regulating bodies of the sport) need to conduct a comprehensive overhaul of the MMA scoring system.
In an ideal world, we wouldn’t need judges. It’s antithical to the very nature of combat sports - two men, relying only upon themselves and their own merits to win a fight. We all want a finish in every fight, the definitive statement of who is the better man. But sadly, we can’t have every fight go one on indefinitely until there’s a clear winner - otherwise Gray Maynard would probably still be fighting.
We need judges, which sucks - but it could suck a whole lot less if we borrowed some judging criteria from parts of the world where they’ve been doing this for a lot longer. Places like Japan.
Now, I would be insane to say it’s nothing but good ideas coming out of a nation where respectable businessmen can buy soiled panties from vending machines on the street and “Unbeatable Banzuke” is actually taken seriously. But when it comes to fighting, the Japanese know their shit. The crowds are highly educated, respectful of the fighters, and have deep loyalties - pretty much the opposite of the North American fan.
What’s more, the scoring system is based exclusively on the sport of MMA - as opposed to the North American system, which is the boxing system cut and pasted into a sport it wasn’t made for. While the Japanese judges view the whole fight as one item and reward the fighter who made the biggest effort to finish the fight, American judges score each round individually based on an arbitrary, abstract 10 point must system which makes more sense in a 12 round boxing tilt then a 3 round MMA bout, along very subjective lines that basically leave the decision up to the personal preferences of the judge.
Am I saying we should just rip off the old Pride scoring? No, but I think it’s a great place to start. We need a “big picture” evaluation of an MMA fight, and a system that takes into account the full variety of offence and defence that can occur in an MM
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