Anyone else agree with Tony Weeks? (Finney vs Valentin)

[Ares Black]

So here's the thing, I don't disagree with you, and I'm not trying to sound retarded, but at least for amateur rules, damage trumps that. Like for instance, fighter A dominates the grappling, getting takedowns, control, but hasn't hit anything significant at all damage wise. The opponent hits a few elbows from bottom, but is clearly being dominated grappling wise, he still wins.
I don't really agree fully, but those are the criteria. I think the rules need updating putting an emphasis on blending both more.

No offense, but that's nonsense. First of all, elbows are generally illegal in amateur MMA.

And the scoring criteria for amateur MMA is the same as for pro.

https://www.abcboxing.com/ABC%20Amateur%20MMA%20Unified%20Rules.pdf

I suppose amateur rules will vary from place to place but in general they are the same.

 

[BFoe]

So here's the thing, I don't disagree with you, and I'm not trying to sound retarded, but at least for amateur rules, damage trumps that. Like for instance, fighter A dominates the grappling, getting takedowns, control, but hasn't hit anything significant at all damage wise. The opponent hits a few elbows from bottom, but is clearly being dominated grappling wise, he still wins.
I don't really agree fully, but those are the criteria. I think the rules need updating putting an emphasis on blending both more.

I can’t speak to ammy MMA. But in pro MMA, if those elbows rocked the dude on top, cut him open, or had more impact than the top guy merely laying on his opponent, I’d weight the elbows as being more effective as well. That just wasn’t the case with last night’s fight though.

 

[CroCopsLHK]

Honestly I want to see Finney get his ass whooped. He is a HORRENDOUS fighter to watch

 

[yossarian1979]

No offense, but that's nonsense. First of all, elbows are illegal in amateur MMA.

And the scoring criteria for amateur MMA is the same as for pro.

https://www.abcboxing.com/ABC%20Amateur%20MMA%20Unified%20Rules.pdf

I suppose amateur rules will vary from place to place but in general they are the same.

So funny enough I went over the guidelines again, you are in fact correct. I was trained and paired with a kickboxing judge who was emphatic about damage over cage control, but you are in fact right. Overall striking/grappling is the number 1 criteria.
My apologies, I kept thinking it makes no sense for fights like this, and I also get why so many kickboxing/boxing judges score differently.

 

[DougieJones]

No

That was like losing a fight against a guy that's not allowed to strike you

Does Valentin know what a knee or uppercut is?

 

[Ares Black]

So funny enough I went over the guidelines again, you are in fact correct. I was trained and paired with a kickboxing judge who was emphatic about damage over cage control, but you are in fact right. Overall striking/grappling is the number 1 criteria.
My apologies, I kept thinking it makes no sense for fights like this, and I also get why so many kickboxing/boxing judges score differently.

It's ok man, and I'm sorry if I came across like a jerk. Judging can be a hard job, especially if you are getting biased or inaccurate info.

Best of luck in your future judging.

 

[DougieJones]

So funny enough I went over the guidelines again, you are in fact correct. I was trained and paired with a kickboxing judge who was emphatic about damage over cage control, but you are in fact right. Overall striking/grappling is the number 1 criteria.
My apologies, I kept thinking it makes no sense for fights like this, and I also get why so many kickboxing/boxing judges score differently.

So you were trained by a guy that scores fights wrong, or am I misinterpreting this?

 

[yossarian1979]

It's ok man, and I'm sorry if I came across like a jerk. Judging can be a hard job, especially if you are getting biased or inaccurate info.

Best of luck in your future judging.

Yeah I'm thankful for not messing anything up yet, and alittle bitter due to rewiring how I originally judging fights, and I feel like it's becoming more common for people to have what I thought was the correct way to judge fights due to being misinformed.
From my personal perspective, I feel it's not good to have striking judges putting striking criteria bias onto the public. The guy who overseen my first event is a kickboxing commissioner in the Florida HOF.
A funny story about this, he and I disagreed on the first fight I judged, and the ref is the UFC ref who founded the Lions Den, and berated his decision. I should've known then not to listen, but I'm glad, superglad, thus thread came up.
I'm gonna make a point to start making sure the judges around me aren't making the same mistakes.

 

[JBJ was here]

Weeks got it right. Finney did an excellent job of dictating the pace, place, and position of the fight, but that constitutes fighting area control, not effective grappling, and is taken into consideration only if effective striking and grappling and aggressive attempts to finish the fight are even. So, by rule Fineny's grappling was ineffective because all it did was establish fighting area control without any damage or even any attempt to land effective strikes or establish a submission from that control position, and if you exclude Finney's grappling from consideration then he clearly lost rounds 1 and 3. Round 2 for Finney is wrong but not completely unreasonable under the unified rules, and Weeks' scorecard is the only reasonable one of the three handed in by the judges.

 

[Ares Black]

Weeks got it right.

No he didn't

Finney did an excellent job of dictating the pace, place, and position of the fight

So, Effective Grappling? The primary scoring criteria?

, but that constitutes fighting area control, not effective grappling, and is taken into consideration only if effective striking and grappling and aggressive attempts to finish the fight are even.

No this is incorrect. Valentin spent the entire first 10 minutes of the fight defending himself and trying to stand back up. In no way did he win either of the first two rounds.

So, by rule Fineny's grappling was ineffective because all it did was establish fighting area control without any damage or even any attempt to land effective strikes or establish a submission from that control position, and if you exclude Finney's grappling from consideration then he clearly lost rounds 1 and 3.

Except that you can't exclude his grappling from the consideration. It is literally the primary scoring criteria.

Round 2 for Finney is wrong but not completely unreasonable under the unified rules, and Weeks' scorecard is the only reasonable one of the three handed in by the judges.

This is absolute nonsense. Under the unified rules Finney very, very clearly won the first two rounds. Weeks' scorecard was ludicrous.

 

[NicholasJBasile]

I had an argument before about this type of scoring hypothetically. People say takedowns count for nothing, but then give whoever backpacks the guy the round. I was thinking about MVP vs Garry where MVP lights him up and gets held for the rest of the 4 minutes. People are split. We're told takedowns count for nothing and an intrinsic reward, but the alternative is judging a fight by a few strikes before the takedown. I really wish guys like MVP beat Garry. I mean it's sort of absurd to ignore 95% of the fight and judge it by only the 5%, but also we've seen the guys like Fitch leave the UFC for doing this.

I'd characterize takedowns as effective grappling, personally. I just feel they count for very little if nothing is done with them.

 

[Tweak896]

I'd characterize takedowns as effective grappling, personally. I just feel they count for very little if nothing is done with them.

I get it, but what if it's 99% of the fight. It's kind of wild to me.

 

[Only Here for Attachments]

Yes.

 

[HeffDoesWant]

Finney had 5 takedowns in round one and dominated the grappling. Scoring the first for Valentin is idiotic.

You literally do not understand how to score MMA fights.

In what way was Finneys grappling effective?

It achieved nothing besides avoiding the fight.

I would have no objection to it being a drawn round, Finneys efforts achieved nothing and therefore cannot be effective.

 

[sonhow]

If Valentin landed a strike or scrambled him sure. Problem is he didnt land a strike in rds 2 or 1.

 

[JustforBROCK]

Finney did himself no favors with this horse shit. I just dont get it. Why the hell would you fight like this is your debut on what you consider the big stage? And this was on purpose. he did this on purpose.

 

[NicholasJBasile]

I get it, but what if it's 99% of the fight. It's kind of wild to me.

Right -- that's why I feel Finney won haha

 

[xhaydenx]

Finney had 5 takedowns in round one and dominated the grappling. Scoring the first for Valentin is idiotic.

You literally do not understand how to score MMA fights.

The criteria says: "successful takedown is not merely a changing of
position, but the establishment of an attack from the use of the takedown. Top and bottom
position fighters are assessed more on the impactful/effective result of their actions, more so
than their position."

None of Finney's tds in the first round or any other rounds led to the establishment of any sort of attack whatsoever.

Effective striking/grappling is supposed to be the most important thing in the criteria, and whether he was on the bottom or held against the cage, Valentin was landing more effective strikes than Finney was at any point, while Finney's grappling wasn't doing anything.

Valentin was also fishing for some subs in the earlier rounds as well. These don't count for much, but they count for more than what Finney was offering.

This combined with the strikes from Valentin should have been more than enough to score each round for him, unless I'm reading the wrong criteria here or something.

It felt like all Finney had to do was at least land a few rabbit punches from time to time and there'd be no discussion at all regarding this fight lol.

 

[Tweak896]

Right -- that's why I feel Finney won haha

I don't like that fighting style but when I waiting for decision I expected 30-27 Finney across the board.

 

[bigfootsbreath]

No, this is wrong, you are misunderstanding the scoring criteria.

“Effective striking is judged solely by determining the impact/effect of legal strikes landed by a contestant solely based on the results of such legal strikes.”

In this case, those strikes had no effect that changed the direction of a fight. What determined he direction of rd 1 was Finney’s effective grappling, which is a coequal criteria. To say “grappling didn’t do damage but punches hurt therefore Punchy Guy wins the round” is wrong. That’s not how it is supposed to be scored.

https://www.abcboxing.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/unified-rules-mma-july-2022.pdf

You wrong yet again. Effective grappling, is where you sitting there hugging on another man's asshoe? And did you get your glasses checked out yet? Finney only landed 4 sig strikes all fight and they were all in round 2. Valentin landed way more sig strikes in every round. Strikes should always trump asshoe hugging or crotch sniffing. This is a fight after all and not some gay pornhub.