The dust has settled. The leadup, fight and aftermath have been digested. The epic rematch between Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor is in the rear-view mirror.
UFC 202 was two weeks ago — though it seems like longer — and I thought it a perfect time to go back and watch the incredible fight again with more of a discerning eye, sans emotion and UFC commentary.
Diaz said this past week, and has been saying since the fight, that he believes he was the rightful winner. Many have echoed his sentiment. On social media the day after UFC 202, I saw a host of conspiracy theories: the fight was fixed, the judges scored it for McGregor to set up a trilogy, Diaz let McGregor win for the big-money third bout, etc. You get the idea. I even had friends — casual fans — contact me asking if any of those above things can be true.
With a fight that big and that close and with that many viewers uneducated about MMA, these are not uncommon ideas, though, of course, they're all wrong.
McGregor won the fight by majority decision on the scorecards. Two judges had it 48-47, while a third, Glenn Trowbridge, had it a draw at 47-47. Watching it back and keeping in mind MMA's official scoring method (which is oft misinterpreted or outright ignored), I had it the same way I did when I watched it live from a few feet away at T-Mobile Arena: 48-47 McGregor.
Seeing it again without hearing the loud cheers from the crowd, it seemed like a pretty clear fight to score. Close in some cases, but clear.
Most would not argue that McGregor won the first and fourth rounds and Diaz took the fifth. Those are inarguable if you're scoring properly (and not with your personal biases or a Jack and Coke in your hand). So, the fight came down to the second and third rounds. All three judges had the second for McGregor and the third for Diaz. Trowbridge gave Diaz a 10-8 in the third.
Keep in mind, if you're scoring correctly you're looking first and foremost at effective striking and grappling. There was almost no grappling in this fight at all, so you're looking exclusive at striking. That means damage.
No, the word "damage" is not actually written in the scoring criteria, but it is taught to judges and implied in the language. Everything else is thrown out — aggression and cage control, the secondary and tertiary scoring methods, do not come into play in this fight at all. You only look at those if the effective striking is 100 percent equal and it was not equal in any of the five rounds in the UFC 202 main event. Aggression and cage control are merely tiebreakers.
Unfortunately for Diaz fans, that means his pressing ahead for the majority of the fight is not weighed at all in scoring here. Not at all. This is not up for debate. This is actually the rules. If you don't like it, that's fine. But you cannot argue that Diaz won the fight due to aggression and cage control. That's as ridiculous as saying a basketball team won a game because it had more rebounds or a football team won a game because it held the ball longer.
Let's start with the second round. Many people who thought Diaz won had him winning the second round and I understand why. Diaz had McGregor in a bad spot in the clinch over the last minute. Nothing he did in that minute, though, was anywhere close to what McGregor did over the first four minutes of the round. He dropped Diaz twice and was overwhelmingly winning the round until the final 60 seconds. Even in that last minute of the round, McGregor was still firing back in the clinch and landing punches and elbows. At one point, Diaz seemed to drop McGregor, but it was really more of a slip. No real damage done. Also worth noting: Blows that do more damage immediately are weighed heavier than volume striking that does damage over an accumulated period of time.
Simply, any other score than 10-9 for McGregor in the second round is incorrect. It's not a matter of opinion or interpretation. If you're following the actual rules, McGregor won the round.
Now, the third round. This is where things get interesting. Watching it back, it actually looked quite a bit like the second round. McGregor had a lot of success over the first 3-1/2 to four minutes. Diaz turned the tide late with a combination that was capped by a headkick. Up until that point, McGregor was probably winning the round, landing the more damaging blows. That changed very quickly.
Diaz got McGregor back against the cage and was pouring it on. This time, McGregor was dodging a bit, but not firing back. Diaz was landing damaging blows, more damaging than anything McGregor did previously in the round.
There's no doubt that Diaz won the round. But was it enough for a 10-8? Probably not. When you're watching for a 10-8, you're looking for damage and dominance, according to the dean of MMA referees John McCarthy. That's over the course of the entire round. Did Diaz damage McGregor? Yes, a good deal. Did he have dominance over the course of the five minutes? He did not.
I had someone ask me if I thought Diaz would have won the third round 10-8 under the new scoring rules that go into effect Jan. 1, 2017. I don't think so. Those rules use the words damage, duration and dominance as marks of a 10-8. If there are two of those characteristics, a 10-8 must be considered. If there are all three, a 10-8 must be the score. Again, damage is there, but I don't think the other two things apply.
The third round was when McGregor started to jog away from Diaz and reset. Twice, Diaz laughed at him and pointed. Those are the kinds of things that can be subconscious factors for fans and even judges, when in reality McGregor was actually getting the better of exchanges during that time period. Again, if you're scoring properly, you're only looking at the blows that land and do damage. McGregor running away to reset does not dock him anything, especially when a second later he's landing a big left hand to Diaz's dome.
On second watch, the fifth round surprised me a bit. Watching in person, I felt like it was a very, very tight round and it could have gone either way. Not true. That was a clear Diaz round. He landed the more damaging blows, especially toward the end. Much like McGregor landed the more damaging blows throughout the first and fourth rounds.
And Diaz did not win the fifth because of the late takedown. That's simply not how it works. The takedown is worth nothing unless something is done with it. It's viewed simply as a positional change and only weighed as cage control if effective striking and effective grappling were equal and they were not.
So there it is: McGregor won the first, second and fourth rounds. Diaz won the third and fifth, neither by 10-8. That comes to 48-47 for McGregor.
It was a close fight, to be sure. One that warrants a third bout since Diaz finished McGregor by second-round submission at UFC 196 in March. That fight did not need a column about judging — there was no question about who won.
The questions will probably linger here. But please, enough with the conspiracy theories. That might be fun fodder for the casual fans, but it is tired and frankly bogus.
Judging is no exact science and some of it is left open to interpretation. But so few people actually understand — or maybe care to understand — how to score MMA fights.
If you're doing it the correct way, the way judges are taught and the way it is meant to be scored in the rules, then McGregor, like it or not, was the victor at UFC 202.
There are plenty of actual bad decisions in MMA to complain about. This one was spot on.