Call For Concern: UFC Suffers Due to Poor Judging and Refereeing

There are some people out there who call themselves MMA fans, I for one am not one of them. I say I am not a fan because my love of the sport borders as some sort of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

So obviously if I'm not a fan, and certainly not a hater of the sport, that can only mean one thing: I'm a fanatic.

So, certainly if I am a fanati,c then I rarely ever miss a UFC or free Strikeforce, and I always check the results for DREAM and Sengoku.

However, I have to say the last two UFC events I most definitely missed. I missed 105 simply out a lack of interest and 106 because I was spending time with a friend who is getting married next week.

Fortunately though, I have heard all the juicy details of last night's fights, and it seems to me like there was some underhanded refereeing and judging.

It came to my attention that Josh Koscheck fought a very dirty and underhanded fight against Anthony Johnson.

As a fan of Johnson and was slowly growing to become a fan of Koscheck's, I have to say I am quite disappointed in the way he fought last night.

Friends told me that Koscheck lied about being hit by a knee to the face and being blinded, then went on to use kryptonite against Johnson.

If I am correct the fight ended with a submission victory by Koscheck as a result of poking Johnson in the eye twice and blinding him.

Now, I really want to know what is going on here in the UFC.

Johnson has lost two fights this way. The first one was against Kevin Burns who just wrecked his eyeball, and now Koscheck.

Why aren't these fights being ruled a no contest? These sort of things shouldn't be tarnishing a talented fighter like Johnson's career.

The second eye poke by Koscheck should be an indication that this guy is fighting dirty and the match should be ended or the guy should be losing part of his purse, not being rewarded a submission of the night bonus.

Now, on the Ortiz vs Griffin II fight, it came to my attention that this fight was once again a poorly judged main event in the UFC. It was just last month that there was all this judging controversy and once again the UFC is embroiled in all this crap again.

I don't know if Griffin truly won this fight, but looking at the score cards and then reading about Dana White's post-fight reactions, it seems to me like there needs to be finely established guidelines for judging.

White seemed very content that Griffin did not deserve a unanimous decision and the fight was much closer than what the cards said.

Whatever guidelines there are, they simply are not working. Is MMA in the United States still using boxing as its example for judging these fights?

These judges don't seem to understand takedowns, submission attempts, and well-placed elbows. The only thing they seem to understand are punches to the head and kicks to the body.

Perhaps it's time to step away from a three-judge scoring model and instead adapt a new system for this sport.

Here is my suggestion: Have a small panel of score keepers. These score keepers' only job is to watch the fight and count strikes, submissions, and takedowns.

These score keepers should be comprised of people who truly understand the sport, like MMA journalists and retired fighters.

There would still be three judges and it would also be their job to keep their own tally for each match.

The judges would take the score keepers' scores into consideration when they are deciding the winner of the fight. It would work similar to the U.S. election process.