Issue 139

March 2016

The sport’s judging system isn’t up to scratch when it comes to deciding competitive fights. Gareth A Davies, TV analyst and MMA reporter for The Telegraph, UK, considers the case for a judging review.

We were all riveted by the first UFC title fight of the year, as Robbie Lawler showed what an admirable champion he has become, battling through the respective blizzards of fatigue and physical pain to retain his title. But in the same moment, we ushered in 2016 offering our condolences to Carlos Condit, the challenger.

The problem wasn’t what Condit hadn’t done, but what the inadequately vague MMA judging system that remains in place failed to do – for him. I genuinely believe we cannot blame bad judging on this one.

There is a systemic problem in the criteria in scoring fights like this, and indeed, the outcome can make or break a career. And as we go to press, this might very well have been Condit’s last, and quite brilliant, offering. Poetic injustice, folks. Perhaps it really is time for the criteria to be seriously examined, refined and potentially changed for the better.

What we know is this: the 10-point must system was designed for boxing. Its disciplines are much simpler to judge than that of a highly-evolved MMA skill set, which involves four ‘dimensions’: an array of striking and complex grappling allied with aggression and control. The parameters for interpretation are broad, and dare it be said, at times, vague.

That’s why it is fair to say that the third round between Condit and Lawler could legitimately have been scored either way. FightMetric had Condit outlanding Lawler by 22 significant strikes to 11. I gave it to Lawler on the power, precision and efficiency of his strikes landed. It was legitimate to call it either way. 

The champion won the tight first and third rounds, yet ‘clearly’ lost the second and fourth by a far wider margin. Yet these rounds carried the same weight on their cards and the two of the three judges’ cards had the fight even going into that decisive fifth frame. There is a need to recognize a problem does exist in scoring fights of this nature, and controversy will naturally follow. 

ESPN writer Brett Okamoto penned an interesting piece last year, in which he detailed the day he spent with the California State Athletic Commission on a mock judging stint. He filed scores ‘shadowing’ alongside licensed judges at a Bellator event under MMA’s Unified Rules. John McCarthy had given a short seminar on those rules earlier that day.

A decent judge of fights, is Brett. Yet under the glare of the spotlights, he found it “mentally exhausting” and it was an effort to stop his mind from wandering. Each five-minute round felt more like 15. So imagine what a judge must feel like having officiated over a six-hour-long evening at an event – where lives, mortgages, families and careers are on the line.

Perhaps commissions should ‘hold back’ three judges just for co-main and championship fights, to ease the burden on exhaustion.

That – and that scoring system again – under a cold light. The parameters are narrow for MMA. MMA has 30 or 50 points. Although there has been a move in recent years to encourage judges to score more 10-8 rounds in MMA, which provides judges with a broader option, why not open that out further to encourage 10-7, for a very dominant round. Ergo, should round four of Lawler-Condit have been a 10-8, for example, for Condit?

A broader system could even up the disparity of the ‘overall fight’ when one protagonist wins two rounds in a big way but the other wins three close rounds, as in Lawler-Condit. Perhaps then, justice will be served.