The sport of Mixed Martial Arts is an ever evolving platform for the ultimate test of hand-to-hand combat in the sporting world. There can be no denying that the sport is enjoying more popularity now than it ever has in the past. Each show seems to sell out faster than the last and in a new record time. Fans line up by the thousands to purchase tickets for live events and it has gotten to the point where we, as viewers, can now watch every single fight on the card if we have the problem outlets. MMA is definitely at an all time high and growing.
While the sport is evolving, however, there is an aspect of this sport that seems to constantly come under question; the judging. While judging in all sports finds itself the center of controversy, it seems to be more pronounced in MMA. Without question, the in touch MMA fan can usually find a tweet per show from Dana saying something to the effect of “that was bullshit [insert name here] was robbed.” Yes, Dana’s mantra is “don’t leave it in the hands of the judges,” but as I have come to realize, this is more the case because he hates the current judging system.
If one were to examine an MMA forum board after an event, they will undoubtedly encounter a thread with “what did you think of the….decision?” These threads are often the most fun to read (and aggravating to participate in) because there’s no general consensus on how fights should be scored. The Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts was supposed to be a clear-cut template by which judges were to refer prior to scoring the bouts. That being said, the interpretations by the various different judges have led to a litany of discussions about refinement of the rules. California has decided to incorporate the half-point scoring system into amateur bouts in 2011. With any hope, this will be a growing trend.
Many people have different problems with the judging criteria. The judges are required to score fights based on the following: Clean strikes, effective grappling, octagon control, and effective aggressiveness. These all seem like relatively simple criteria, but the problem is rooted in the wording. Clean striking if often difficult to examine due to the shape and angles of the octagon. Some states have recently begun using monitors so that the judges can have a clearer look of the action inside the cage from different angles. Clean striking is also a subjective term. More often than not, judges will use visual aids to determine who got the better of the exchanges during a round. For instance, if one fighter is completely busted up in the face while the other fighter looks like he stepped out of the shower or has minor swelling, the judges will usually award the round accordingly. However, in closely contested rounds where the striking appeared even, even the appearance of blood can sway the round away from a fighter.
This leads to the question of efficient striking vs. effective striking. Does a fighter who throws 25 jabs in a round landed 23 of them deserve the round over a fighter who threw 10 jabs, landing 7, and 3 uppercuts, dropping his opponent once and wobbling him a second time? How does one score that round? The higher volume of strikes was thrown by the efficient striker, but the greater damage was done by the effective striker. Both gameplans have their merits. Georges St. Pierre all but jabbed his was to a unanimous victory over Josh Koscheck at UFC 124. There was absolutely no question as to who the winner of this fight was by the end of the fight. Koscheck had a broken orbital bone and his eye was swollen shut while GSP looked like he had just entered the cage. In this particular instance, the jab routine was an effective gameplan. Conversely, Martin Kampmann’s fight with Diego Sanchez saw Kampmann putting on a striking clinic against Diego. Sanchez was dropped early and often from a battery of technical striking and range showed by Kampmann. By the end of the fight, Kampmann had outlanded Diego 97-45. Diego managed to steal a round with a rather uneventful take-down. Which, by the way, Diego was 1-15 on his takedown attempts during that fight, so if you were judging the fight properly, Kampmann clearly won on clean strikes and effective grappling.
There is another tricky term; effective grappling. If Diego Sanchez was 1-15 in his take-down attempts, shouldn’t Kampmann’s ability to keep the fight where he wanted it for the majority of the fight constitute “effective grappling.” I’m no math major, but landing 7% of your take-downs isn’t exactly an overwhelming majority. Yet, I would be willing to bet that, even though Kampmann popped right back up, the lone take-down, in the entire fight, during the third round, was enough to give Diego that round. The resulting decision saw all three judges scoring the contest 29-28 for Sanchez. Once again, this fight was met with much controversy.
There are fights, however, that generally blow your mind. Those fights where one judge seems to be the outlier and you wonder, what fight did they watch? Phan-Garcia from The Ultimate Fighter 12 Season Finale comes to my mind for these fights. Adalaide Byrd and Tony Weeks scored the fight 29-28 for Garcia, while Kamijo gave the nod to Phan 30-27. At a first glance you might think that Kamijo was watching a completely different fight than the other two judges and gave an incorrect score…you’d be wrong. It was the OTHER two judges watching a different fight than Kamijo and BOTH gave an incorrect score. Nevada State Athletic Commission’s executive director, Keith Kizer, personally attended the event and scored the fight 30-27 for Phan. The worst part about this entire situation is that Kamijo was the newcomer. Byrd and Weeks are longtime officials with the NSAC. How did the newcomer score the fight just like the rest of the world and the athletic director and the two longtime officials score it incorrectly? What exactly were they watching? The world may never know, but Kizer said he planned to re-watch the contested bout, and if necessary, sit down with Weeks and Byrd. No further developments surfaced.
Simply put, there’s a clear case for the need to revamp the judging system within MMA. It’s hard to imagine another sport dealing with these sorts of issues at the officiating level. Can you imagine if Ed Hochuli and Jerome Boger scored an NFL game 29-28 Packers, while Jeff Triplette scored the game 30-27 in favor of the Vikings? Oh wouldn’t that make NFL games so much more exciting? It would definitely add a little flavor to those conference rivalries. There’s many suggestions on how to revamp the scoring system within MMA and I’m not here to advocate any of them in particular, but rather to say simply and matter-of-factly, it needs to happen…soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment