Let’s talk round by round scoring

[bradutterstrom]

Since the beginning of scoring rounds in mma, I’ve been saying the boxing model is terrible for mma. We as fans, as well as judges, are conditioned to score the winner of a round 10-9 unless someone almost dies. Every once in awhile a fight comes along that strongly illustrates my point, and last night that was the Joshua Van-Durden fight.

Let’s break it down. Round 1, pretty close round. Van landing cleaner shots, but he’s a slow starter and durden is the aggressor. Round was something of a tossup, but many people watching (including 2 of the sherdog pbp judges) gave it to Durden. So let’s assume you give the round to Durden, he’s up 10-9.

Round 2. Van starts heating up, and the difference in speed and skill becomes very apparent. Van thoroughly dominated this round, has Durden rocked a bit (but never down.) Durden is a gamer. He’s still throwing, but this round is ALL Van, plenty of damage, no doubt about it. So the round goes to Van, 10-9.

So wait, you’re telling me if you went with Durden in round 1, we’ve got a draw so far? Many people have this fight even?

If you’re watching this fight with someone who doesn’t follow mma, and doesn’t know about the judging criteria, who is winning this fight after 2 rounds IT IS JOSHUA VAN 100% of the time. Common knowledge tells you Van is winning the fight handily.

We’re not gonna look at the 3rd, because the point I’m making is proven at the point 2 rounds are completed. This fight was not close after 2 rounds, but because we are conditioned to score mma like boxing with nothing but 10-9s, many many people have this fight even after 2 rounds and it just should not have been. MMA fights are usually 3 rounds, we need to give more weight to each round. More 10-8s, more 10-7s, and more 10-10s. That’s the solution. Actually an even better solution is to drop the 10 point system all together and go to 5, or something that can give a fighter between 0 and 3 points in a round.
0 neither fighter had an edge
1 point if it’s a close round but 1 guy edged it
2 points if one fighter is the clear winner, either controlling the entire time or causing significant damage
3 points for an absolute thrashing, essentially what we currently consider a 10-8.

 

[egk]

I agree 100%. I've said the same thing for years too. The boxing model is just not good for 3 or even 5 rounders. Boxing has many more rounds to hopefully make up for badly scored ones but even in boxing the judging often stinks.
It's much better to judge fights as a whole like Pride did or like a race where the scoring of the rounds blends together. Way too many do-nothing rounds or extremely close rounds count the same as if a fighter is dominating.
One of the worst things about the round by round system is it often promotes points fighting. There's nothing worse than watching a guy look at the clock and go for a takedown with 10 seconds left in a round thinking he needs that to take the round.

 

[chinarice]

Yeah I was thinking about it last night and there is a serious overhaul needed in how mma fights are structured. I think we need more rounds with less time per round. Non title fights need to be 5 and title fights 7 or something. I think they need to do away with the 10-9 must system but I truly can't think of a way to score mma fairly as it has so many nuances compared to boxing.

I'd love to see someone propose a great idea for changing how MMA fights are scored

 

[MichiganMMA1978]

I vote for no rounds or judges.
Fight till there's a winner. Fighters would go for the finish instead of coasting to a decision.

 

[egk]

The problem with the round by round scoring is they score the rounds in a vaccuum. Or they are supposed to. It's like 3 or 5 short fights not one long one. Score the fights more like a race and show who is ahead between rounds.

 

[egk]

I vote for no rounds or judges.
Fight till there's a winner. Fighters would go for the finish instead of coasting to a decision.

You ever seen the original UFC shows? They tried that and when the fighters gassed it was a boring slog watching them paw at one another. Not exactly made for TV.

 

[bradutterstrom]

In theory I agree no time limit would be awesome, but let’s look at what happened the one time that we actually saw it…Royce and Sakuraba fought for like an hour and a half. What we would see is fighters less willing to expend energy, knowing the fight could go on forever, and whoever gasses first probably loses. So I think we’d see almost no aggression if we switched to no time limit, fight till there’s a winner.

 

[MichiganMMA1978]

You ever seen the original UFC shows? They tried that and when the fighters gassed it was a boring slog watching them paw at one another. Not exactly made for TV.

I've watched since UFC 1 lol

 

[TheMMAnalyst]

I'll always say the same thing when I see these threads:

Score the fight as a whole and use damage as the only scoring criteria. If damage is close to equal then you can use control/aggression/etc. to determine the winner.

People complain about "damage" being subjective but all things in fighting are subjective - the point of control is it allows you to damage your opponent, if not it's essentially just stalling (I mean at minimum you should be putting tons of pressure and endlessly transitioning to "cook" your opponent, at which point you can then damage them).

If we did this fighters likely wouldn't stall knowing they will easily lose on the damage criteria if they aren't attacking and it would give them a much clearer idea of what they should be working towards throughout the course of a fight.

We'd have far better fights and far better decisions where we could at least debate who won a close fight that was a war, instead of debating does 4 minutes of control out-weigh getting your ass beat for 1 minute standing.

 

[tdluxon]

I think pretty much all fans agree the way that judging works is terrible. Pride or k1 scoring would be way better

 

[JBJ was here]

No time limit is a terrible idea for obvious reasons. Round-by-round scoring is important for holding judges accountable. That said, coin-flip rounds should be 10-10s rather than forced into being 10-9s and judges should score the fight as a whole as a tiebreaker if their round-by-round score is tied at the end of a fight.

Most important though is for judges to actually apply the basic criteria under the unified rules for determining effective striking and grappling, namely that to be effective and count towards winning a round striking and grappling must have "immediate or cumulative impact with the potential to contribute to the end of the match, with the IMMEDIATE weighing more heavily than the cumulative impact.” Pitter-patter shots and L&P or wall-and-stall that don't even leave your opponent breathing hard don't count at all.

 

[MRT]

Since the beginning of scoring rounds in mma, I’ve been saying the boxing model is terrible for mma. We as fans, as well as judges, are conditioned to score the winner of a round 10-9 unless someone almost dies. Every once in awhile a fight comes along that strongly illustrates my point, and last night that was the Joshua Van-Durden fight.

Let’s break it down. Round 1, pretty close round. Van landing cleaner shots, but he’s a slow starter and durden is the aggressor. Round was something of a tossup, but many people watching (including 2 of the sherdog pbp judges) gave it to Durden. So let’s assume you give the round to Durden, he’s up 10-9.

Round 2. Van starts heating up, and the difference in speed and skill becomes very apparent. Van thoroughly dominated this round, has Durden rocked a bit (but never down.) Durden is a gamer. He’s still throwing, but this round is ALL Van, plenty of damage, no doubt about it. So the round goes to Van, 10-9.

So wait, you’re telling me if you went with Durden in round 1, we’ve got a draw so far? Many people have this fight even?

If you’re watching this fight with someone who doesn’t follow mma, and doesn’t know about the judging criteria, who is winning this fight after 2 rounds IT IS JOSHUA VAN 100% of the time. Common knowledge tells you Van is winning the fight handily.

We’re not gonna look at the 3rd, because the point I’m making is proven at the point 2 rounds are completed. This fight was not close after 2 rounds, but because we are conditioned to score mma like boxing with nothing but 10-9s, many many people have this fight even after 2 rounds and it just should not have been. MMA fights are usually 3 rounds, we need to give more weight to each round. More 10-8s, more 10-7s, and more 10-10s. That’s the solution. Actually an even better solution is to drop the 10 point system all together and go to 5, or something that can give a fighter between 0 and 3 points in a round.
0 neither fighter had an edge
1 point if it’s a close round but 1 guy edged it
2 points if one fighter is the clear winner, either controlling the entire time or causing significant damage
3 points for an absolute thrashing, essentially what we currently consider a 10-8.

I think the current system would be 'ok' if the judges were competent and actually adhered to the scoring system. 10-8 is not supposed to be as rare as it is right now. This very issue was explicitly addressed a while back and the scoring guidance explicitly states that 'domination' is not required for a 10-8 to be considered. The problem is the judges don't consider 10-8 as often as they should.

I do agree there should be 10-10 rounds...but again, only if the judges are more compentent. I would bet anything that many judges would just default to 10-10 when things are even remotely close, rather than have a more critical eye to identify a rightful round winner.

 

[egk]

I think the current system would be 'ok' if the judges were competent and actually adhered to the scoring system. 10-8 is not supposed to be as rare as it is right now. This very issue was explicitly addressed a while back and the scoring guidance explicitly states that 'domination' is not required for a 10-8 to be considered. The problem is the judges don't consider 10-8 as often as they should.

I do agree there should be 10-10 rounds...but again, only if the judges are more compentent. I would bet anything that many judges would just default to 10-10 when things are even remotely close, rather than have a more critical eye to identify a rightful round winner.

When they tried to clarify the rules so judges would give more 10-8s, many of the same people on here who bitch about the decisions and advocated for more 10-8s then bitched about rounds being scored 10-8. People tend to still go by their own rules they make up in their minds.

 

[markys00]

I think the current system would be 'ok' if the judges were competent and actually adhered to the scoring system. 10-8 is not supposed to be as rare as it is right now. This very issue was explicitly addressed a while back and the scoring guidance explicitly states that 'domination' is not required for a 10-8 to be considered. The problem is the judges don't consider 10-8 as often as they should.

I do agree there should be 10-10 rounds...but again, only if the judges are more compentent. I would bet anything that many judges would just default to 10-10 when things are even remotely close, rather than have a more critical eye to identify a rightful round winner.

Terrible idea. Less 10-8s.

It will legitimately ruin the sport if we allow a liberal use of 10-8s or 10-7s

 

[MRT]

Terrible idea. Less 10-8s.

It will legitimately ruin the sport if we allow a liberal use of 10-8s or 10-7s

I don't see how it would ruin the sport, tbh.

It seems somewhat illogical that in a round that was extremely difficult to call, virtually even, that someone must get a 10-9...then someone clearly wins the next with a knockdown or near-sub, but gets the same score.

I think there could be other beneficial moves made in addition to more 10-8 scores, including a 10-10 option (which should prevent over-reliance on 10-8 scores to account for the example above) and open scoring after each round (coupled with the addition of stalling or failure to engage penalties to prevent frontrunners from riding out a fight).

I'm not a big fan of 10-7 scores though...they should be *extremely* rare and reserved for pillar to post domination where there is also a ton of damage inflicted.

 

[MRT]

When they tried to clarify the rules so judges would give more 10-8s, many of the same people on here who bitch about the decisions and advocated for more 10-8s then bitched about rounds being scored 10-8. People tend to still go by their own rules they make up in their minds.

I think that is more a problem of poor judging than of there being more 10-8 scores.

I realize the judging can be hard 'in the moment' and without always having the best vantage point...but there are still too many *bad* score cards being turned in all too often. The commissions need to do better...it's really on them, IMHO.

 

[Harlekin]

Using a system that was developed for 15 rounds for mma where you got 2 or 3 or 5 rounds is retarded.
Saying this for a decade.

10-8 down to 10-6 made it better.

But seeing Shavkat vs Garry.
Shavkat winning the first 2 rounds by like 1 punch.... shows the system doesn't work. I don't care about Garry and I'm fine with the result btw.

 

[SportsGuyCorey]

10 point must is a bad way to score 3 & 5 round fights. With more rounds in boxing it works out more often but after just two rounds right fight can be over. They need to do 10 points if you won the round clearly. I don't see why there can't be a 9-9 round...or heck, even a 10-10 round if both guys look epic and it's close. But UFC doesn't want a ton of draws.

Personally I like Joe Rogan's idea of 8 minute rounds. How often do you see a guy fight for positioning, finally get the guy down with one minute left and then the clock runs out and they go back to standup. It's more time for a guy to definitively win a round.

 

[maximus__]

Using a system that was developed for 15 rounds for mma where you got 2 or 3 or 5 rounds is retarded.
Saying this for a decade.

10-8 down to 10-6 made it better.

But seeing Shavkat vs Garry.
Shavkat winning the first 2 rounds by like 1 punch.... shows the system doesn't work. I don't care about Garry and I'm fine with the result btw.

Shavkat should have won those rounds though. Ian was actively retreating, getting backed against the cage and Shavkat was the only one providing any forward offensive pressure.
It's an example of striking/grappling being so close we move to the other criteria.
All of Ian's offence came of Shavkat's actions. Ian had one great moment, but don't forget that came off a counter to Shavkat's offence.
It wins him the round, but the fight was Ian's if he actually threw something besides a leg kick or jab in the first 4 rounds.
Once he opened up, he started to have success. It made it hard for Shavkat to land offence, but he still atleast attacked. Ian needs to fix that issue in his fights and attack earlier.

Compare that to Gane who had an average kimura attack and the proceeded to lie under Volkov for a round and win...
The other round he got outstruck and outwrestled when it went there..

Edit:Wow they gave Gane the 1st and second.... fire those idiots, that's not defendable.

 

[Hassan Mouzine]

Since the beginning of scoring rounds in mma, I’ve been saying the boxing model is terrible for mma. We as fans, as well as judges, are conditioned to score the winner of a round 10-9 unless someone almost dies. Every once in awhile a fight comes along that strongly illustrates my point, and last night that was the Joshua Van-Durden fight.

Let’s break it down. Round 1, pretty close round. Van landing cleaner shots, but he’s a slow starter and durden is the aggressor. Round was something of a tossup, but many people watching (including 2 of the sherdog pbp judges) gave it to Durden. So let’s assume you give the round to Durden, he’s up 10-9.

Round 2. Van starts heating up, and the difference in speed and skill becomes very apparent. Van thoroughly dominated this round, has Durden rocked a bit (but never down.) Durden is a gamer. He’s still throwing, but this round is ALL Van, plenty of damage, no doubt about it. So the round goes to Van, 10-9.

So wait, you’re telling me if you went with Durden in round 1, we’ve got a draw so far? Many people have this fight even?

If you’re watching this fight with someone who doesn’t follow mma, and doesn’t know about the judging criteria, who is winning this fight after 2 rounds IT IS JOSHUA VAN 100% of the time. Common knowledge tells you Van is winning the fight handily.

We’re not gonna look at the 3rd, because the point I’m making is proven at the point 2 rounds are completed. This fight was not close after 2 rounds, but because we are conditioned to score mma like boxing with nothing but 10-9s, many many people have this fight even after 2 rounds and it just should not have been. MMA fights are usually 3 rounds, we need to give more weight to each round. More 10-8s, more 10-7s, and more 10-10s. That’s the solution. Actually an even better solution is to drop the 10 point system all together and go to 5, or something that can give a fighter between 0 and 3 points in a round.
0 neither fighter had an edge
1 point if it’s a close round but 1 guy edged it
2 points if one fighter is the clear winner, either controlling the entire time or causing significant damage
3 points for an absolute thrashing, essentially what we currently consider a 10-8.

I kinda agree. but maybe it could be a bit simpler? because there are 4 types a judge can chose from and it could result in weird round scores.
let's say a round is really really even but 1 fighter might have done a tiny bit more, but definately not that much.

than judge A gscores the first round even (0-0) and judge B scores it (1-0) and the third, judge C, is asleep and scores it (2-0).

what i do agree with your proposal is more 10-10 rounds (your 0-0). we are looking at silly 'significant strikes' scores and takedown attempts etc to try and figure who won the round. if it is not that clear, than make it an even round.

so I like your idea of 4 ways to score a round (7 actualy, because you can score it for both fighters) but mabe this is simpler

0-0 for a round that is difficult to tell who won. these are the rounds where after a fight everybody scores it differently
1-0 if fighter wins the round by being more active/doing a bit more damage/just somply winning it. not dominating
2-0 a dominant round. this could be a heavy knock down or complete control on the ground, including damage dealing/grapple threat

i hear you thinking.....isn't this the same as the 10-9 system? no, not really. because if there is not a fighter that is clearly more active and inflicts damage.....it should be a 0-0 round. I see alot of 0-0 rounds, all the time. but judges feel like they have to chose a fighter and they have to do it in a short amount of time. it's very subjective. if it becomes too close and too subjective....it should be a 0-0 round