http://www.sherdog.com/news/articles/1/ ... ging-21203

Years before the UFC and mixed martial arts learned to walk erect in polite society, judges were considered useless. A no-time-limit atmosphere guaranteed one fighter in every bout would end his evening as a bloody carcass against the fence, neatly folded and cooperatively dazed for easy transport to the emergency room. Huge talent disparities meant that most fights ended this way in five minutes or less. The UFC needed crime scene clean-up, not a scoring table.

This was Rorion Gracie’s preference, but even something as ugly and primitive as sadism needs to accommodate capitalism. Television schedules eventually insisted on a clock, which Ken Shamrock was prone to exhausting: In two of his three “Superfights” in 1995, he and his opponent settled for draws. No muscular, hematoma-heavy competition needed something as antiquated as a scorekeeper.

In an effort to catch up to Shamrock, though, other fighters were getting better, and it became more and more difficult to apply a finish. In December 1995, figuring that their all-star tournament would be unmanageable without clear winners in the early rounds, the promotion finally installed judges at ringside. Because the UFC insisted on being tacky, the men wouldn’t turn in tabulated cards: they would hold up Octagon-shaped signs on which they had written their winner. (These cards, if they ever surfaced, would be instant collector’s items, and could look forward to a long and climate-controlled life in an acid-free plastic bag.)

Dan Severn became the first athlete in the UFC to win a decision, pinning down David “Tank” Abbott in the quarterfinals of that tournament; Forrest Griffin is the most recent, having convinced judges that he bested Tito Ortiz on Nov. 21. In between, there has been slowly escalating concern that judges have been skipping optometrist appointments. Lax professionalism may have cost Mauricio Rua the title against Lyoto Machida in October; Randy Couture’s grand-old-man celebrity may have impressed more than Brandon Vera crumpling him with body shots in Manchester.

The problem with begging for reform -- which has become a regular bell for critics and fans to ring -- is that it ignores the significant aversion humans have to admitting error. If an athletic commission institutes changes in what is clearly a flawed system, the subtext is that they didn’t know what they were doing in the first place. Good luck with that.

People who seek positions of influence tend to want to control situations, not follow instructions by layman’s committee. What we’re left with are decisions by judges of suspect credentials and observation who could potentially be altering the course of careers -- all while commissions shrug and point to the subjective nature of the role.

This space will take the expected tact of suggesting ways to fix a fractured system. But in attempting to address some obvious glitches in the way fights are calculated, we’ll be taking a more rational approach. Any one of these patches could be easily applied without sacrificing administrative egos or deleting entire passages.

As my intellectual property, I would ask for only a small percentage of the gate in return. Five ways to invite reform without inviting contempt:

1. Five judges, not three.

In addition to creating a market for lousy T-shirts and an inexplicable fetish for dragons, MMA’s growth has also seen a sharp rise in the number of people who are interested in participating on an administrative level. People want to be referees and judges, despite a poor compensation base, little gratitude and -- in the event of a blown call -- 20 ounces of flying concession beer with your name on it.

The current system, which calls for three pairs of eyes, means that only two individuals need to botch a scorecard to see a fighter to tears. Having five judges reduces the likelihood of one or two hiccupping brain having an adverse effect on the action. This is the method used in amateur Olympic boxing, though those officials are charged with pressing buttons in response to what they perceive as effective hits. We can do without the game-show theatrics, but the hive mentality is a sound one.

2. Surveillance.

There is anecdotal information to suggest that some judges of prizefighting are more occupied with what’s inside their nose than what’s inside the ring. Having the commission install a stationary camera trained on their table for the duration of the event would severely reduce the potential for any of them to become preoccupied with ring girl rear. In the event of a truly egregious decision, members could review videotape to make certain their attention was fixed in place.

3. Random testing.

This is the great perception error of judging: As employed by the commission, they may appear exempt from the kind of performance auditing applied to fighters. But if the end game is to arrive at a just decision in a prizefight, judges need to be treated like the combatants: prone to human error and in need of observation. The commission should be, at a moment’s notice, able and willing to call in any judge and administer a written or oral test on the rules and regulations of their duties, including the scoring of a little-seen fight on videotape. If they possess a cratered or incomplete understanding of the job, they need remedial work -- or re-assignment to watching someone pee in a cup.

4. Enlist a media ombudsman ringside.

When the job is done correctly, the role of the media is as watchdog: to keep the focus of their investigations honest by the virtue of their presence, and to chastise them when they’re behaving without integrity.

At each event, a media member should be pulled from duty at press row and placed at the judges’ table. In addition to observing their behavior, the reporter can experience the fight from their perspective, crucial when discussion comes up over “what the judges saw” or what blows/attacks had a significantly different impact than what was seen on television.

5. Determine the limits of control.

Most judging error can be boiled down to whether or not an official values control over damage. This can be blamed in part on the gauzy, vague wording of the Unified Rules. (“Judges shall use a sliding scale and recognize the length of time the fighters are either standing or on the ground, as follows: If the mixed martial artists spent a majority of a round on the canvas, then effective grappling is weighed first; and [then] effective striking is weighed.”)

But this is in almost immediate contrast to the passage preceding it, which states, “Judges shall evaluate mixed martial arts techniques, such as effective striking, effective grappling, control of the fighting area, effective aggressiveness and defense. … Evaluations shall be made in the order in which the techniques appear above, giving the most weight in scoring to effective striking, effective grappling, control of the fighting area and effective aggressiveness and defense.”

If an athlete spends four minutes of a round in a fighter’s guard landing irritating, slapping strikes but receives a significant beating on the feet for the remaining minute, the judges have probable cause to award the controlling -- but non-damaging -- fighter the round. This is ridiculous. In maintaining position on the ground, you’re effectively stifling your opponent’s attack. But without delivering a substantial one of your own, all you’ve done is turn a fight into a citizen’s arrest. Subduing an athlete is not beating them. Why should the fighter who dominated and battered you be penalized for accomplishing more in that minute than you could in four?

6. The Phantom 10-10

For reasons unknown, judges in mixed martial arts are fixated on one method of scoring: the 10-9 round, the winner getting 10 and the loser nine. In actuality, rules suggest that a clearly one-sided round can be 10-8 or even 10-7. (Their absence isn’t a bad thing: “dominance” is so wildly subjective that increased examples of 10-8 or 10-7 would congest and confuse the system even more than it is now.)

The 10-10 round, however, allowed by the Unified Rules, would offer a solution to those close rounds where neither fighter exhibits clear effectiveness or bouts of striking were nullified by extended control. Following the rules, Lyoto Machida and Mauricio Rua’s first round was 10-10: neither fighter stood out.

7. The Statisticians

Prizefighting often has more going on than a single pair of eyes can see. Stat houses like FightMetric -- which supplies the UFC with the data on their broadcast -- and CompuStrike view bouts and tally power strikes and takedowns. This is hard, factual stuff that should be used in the evaluation of a fight, not a post-mortem prosecution of the judges. At least one judge should be using these numbers as his reference point, bringing objective data into the equation.

Judges have a difficult job, compounded by the layered nature of the sport. No system will ever completely eliminate the potential for botched decisions or human error. But there’s no argument to be made against increasing scrutiny in how officials perform their duties. Judges need judges.

I don't agree with point 7, but the others are all sound.

While the principle sounds nice, all they are really doing is adding extra judges (making point 7 just a worse form of point 1) - the stat counters are still making subjective assesments over what they thought scored, what was a power punch, what was a good submission attempt, etc. I'd argue that the judges should be scoring the fight in this manner themselves, rather than simply writing down either a 10 or a 9 at the end of each round. They HAVE to pay attention then and it would really highlight where and how they think each round is won or lost. Simply having them read a sheet of stats prepared by someone else and then using that to base their decision on is a ridiculous idea in practice - they could do that from anywhere in the world and would have even less reason to watch the fight properly.

Yeh 7 would only worsen their addiction to staring at 'ring girl rear' as they say......damn fine rears tho...

Number 5 got me thinking and I came up with an interesting and I'm sure controversial scoring system. I suggest a sort of 2-tiered scoring system, with the first tier being more significant in scoring a round than the second tier. The only obvious problem I can think of right now is that it might make the scoring even more complex and arbitrary than it already is, but here goes.

The first tier would have 2 simple criteria: Effective aggression, and effectively attempting to finish the fight. The second tier would be a sort of "sub-set" of the first-tier criteria: Effective striking, grappling, dominating positions, and cage control. I consider the second-tier a "sub-set" because many correct combinations of those could lead to the first-tier criteria being met.

Since effective aggression and effectively attempting to finish the fight are more vague, and therefore more difficult to score(but I feel more important to who is actually winning each round), these things would need to be justified by the second-tier criteria in many circumstances. In in circumstances where the first-tier criteria were met very obviously and significantly, the judges would be forced to weigh them much more than the second tier criteria. In circumstances where the judges felt the first-tier criteria were very ambiguous, then they would fall back to the more technical second-tier criteria to determine who won each round.

I feel that a more specific and dynamic scoring system such as this would be more appropriate for MMA. However, I could only see it working if each judge were forced to justify why and how the first-tier was or was not met, and why falling back to the technicalities of the second-tier(as well as exactly what they were) would make this system possible.

I think all seven points are valid. Punch stats are readily availabe to judges in, say, boxing. There's no reason why judges in MMA shouldn't take them in to consideration.

Any one of these ideas would significantly improve the judging in MMA, and I'm especially fond of points 5 and 6. I was completely un-aware that a 10-10 round was possible until now. Why the hell have we never seen one?

It's rare in Western promotions, but watch some Japanese ones and you'll see it. 60+% of rounds in K-1 seem to end with a 10-10 score

Same as seeing anything other than a 10-9 is quite infrequent, and I don't think I've ever anything below a 10-7 except for maybe Kalib Starnes's last fight in the UFC. Seem to recall he got really low scores (rightly so).

I also think that the scoring is slightly different, but still under a 10 point must condition. As far as I am aware the "open" part simply means they announce the round score after each round so the fighters and the crowd know who is winning and who needs to work harder, etc. Certainly, that's what the claimed benefit of the system is.

Hell, WE'D be better judges.

And yeah, I guess the nevada guys are all hot for boxing.