Time to Re-Think MMA Judging?

By Michael David Smith - Lead Blogger

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Diego Sanchez's split decision victory over Clay Guida at Saturday night's Ultimate Fighter Finale was one of the best UFC fights of the year, but MMA fans have been talking almost as much about the judging of the fight as the fight itself.

Sanchez obviously won the first round, but it's open to debate whether it should have been scored 10-8 or 10-9. The second and third rounds were close enough that both could have been scored 10-9 for either Sanchez or Guida, or 10-10. That means I think any of these scores is reasonable:

30-26 Sanchez
30-27 Sanchez
30-28 Sanchez
30-29 Sanchez
29-27 Sanchez
29-28 Sanchez
29-28 Guida
28-28 draw
29-29 draw

As it turns out, the judges scored the bout 29-27 for Sanchez, 29-28 for Sanchez and 29-28 for Guida. All reasonable scores in my opinion. Luke Thomas of Bloody Elbow has a post up that examines the judging in more detail, including the fact that Sherdog's three judges had it 30-27 for Sanchez, 29-28 for Sanchez and a 29-29 draw. Again, all reasonable scores in my opinion.

But while I think it's reasonable to score the fight a draw or even a win for Guida, I don't think there's any reasonable way that a person could look at the totality of the 15-minute fight and say that Guida was the better fighter. Obviously, if you just look at the whole fight objectively and determine who was better, you have to say Sanchez was the victor. That's what Rami Genaur of FightMetric.com does, and the FightMetric.com method says Sanchez dominated the fight.

Judging the whole fight objectively and determining who was better is not precisely what MMA judges do, but maybe it should be. If the 10-point must system can lead to Guida winning a fight in which Sanchez was clearly the better fighter, maybe it's time to scrap the 10-point must system.

I was already thinking about this heading into the Sanchez-Guida fight because of Friday night's Strikeforce main event between Joey Villasenor and Evangelista "Cyborg" Santos. In my opinion, Cyborg was the better fighter if you're considering the totality of their 15-minute fight. But if you judge each of the three rounds individually -- which is what MMA judges do -- Villasenor deserved to win, 29-28. Cyborg was a lot better in the second round, but Villasenor was a little better in the first and third rounds. Villasenor won by split decision.

Some people who want to change MMA judging think MMA should get rid of round-by-round scoring and simply judge the whole fight, as some Japanese MMA promotions do. Others think the round-by-round scoring is OK, but the 10-point must system should be replaced with another scoring method. Still others think the 10-point must system is OK but the problem is that judges score rounds 10-9 too often and should feel less inhibited about scoring close rounds 10-10 and one-sided rounds 10-8, or even 10-7.

Personally, I'm sympathetic to the latter point of view. I'd like to see MMA move more toward the K-1 style of scoring, where judges use the 10-point must system but feel much more freedom to score rounds 10-10 or 10-8. In American MMA, almost every round is a 10-9 round. That's what leads to scores like 29-28 for Guida and 29-28 for Villasenor.

Of course, fighters who don't like the scoring of the judges can't really complain too much. They've got 15 minutes to win a fight, and if they leave it in the judges' hands, then the 10-point must system is what they'll have to live with. At least until someone comes up with something better.

Read More: clayguida, diegosanchez, ultimate fighter finale, ultimatefighterfinale, Clay Guida (MMA), Diego Sanchez (MMA)

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