I find it odd that your "unifed rules of MMA" from a boxing site are different that the "unifed rules of MMA" that UFC has on it sites.
http://www.ufc.com/discover/sport/rules-and-regulations#1
Yet another site says, "effective striking is judged by determining the total number of legal heavy strikes landed by a contestant."
http://www.elitemmareferees.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=50&Itemid=63
At best we can say is it is unclear what is meant.
It is odd that this is such a grey area.
Herb Dean references the ABC unified rules on his site. Those are what I've followed:
http://herbdean.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/ABC_unified_rules_of_MMA_study_guide.pdf
I see that John McCarthy references different ones, but still states that the significance of the strikes is important:
"Effective striking is judged by determining the number of legal strikes landed by a contestant and the significance of such legal strikes."
http://www.mmareferee.com/?q=unifiedrules
NSAC is vague, but does state that impact is important.
"Effective striking is judged by considering (a) the impact of legal strikes landed by each contestant, and (b) the number of legal strikes landed by each contestant. The more impact a strike has on an opponent, the more credit is to be given to the striking contestant. Cumulative impact inflicted by each contestant during the round is also to be recognized. A contestant landing more strikes during the round than the opponent, and the differential thereof, may also be weighed as factors in determining which contestant was the more effective striker."
http://boxing.nv.gov/uploadedFiles/boxingnvgov/content/faq/MMA-FOULS_JUDGING_CRITERIA_01-13.pdf
I wonder what constitutes a "heavy strike" in New Jersey's definition. That sounds like a bigger blow than the "significant strikes" that fightmetric counts, which are often nowhere near a heavy or even important strike.
This is why I don't have a problem with the decision, even though I'd have either given it to Silva or called it a draw. Most people thought Bisping was the better fighter that night and he did push Silva the whole time and even had him in trouble a couple times early on. I can even understand why the judges were not impressed by the situation that left Bisping crumpled in a bloody heap at the end of round 3 and punished Silva with only a 10-9. There are many ways to interpret a fight, and maybe that's how it should be. Anything is better than the Olympic boxing point-fighting criteria that the UFC rules suggest. The important thing is getting judges with real MMA experience so they know what they're looking at; people who can determine who performed better during each round based on having been in all those situations himself, rather than arguing the semantics of a rules page. Fights are too complex for that.
