Robbie Lawler: If they scored damage, I'd be champion

Round by Round scoring is more of the issue... if they scored damage Robbie still loses if you judge the fight round by round.
 
Jopo said:
My solution is seriously to just judge the fight on how the damage effects the opponent. Part of your makeup as a fighter is your ability to take damage for better or for worse.

If you're close to being finished in a fight because your chin is weak well too bad in my book. It should count against you.

If a guy lands 20 big punches that seemingly cause no damage and the opponent lands 1 big one that knocks the guy down then the fight was almost finished then thats pretty damn important "fight wise".
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Yeah. This.
 
Kneeuinthenutz said:
If there was ever any consistency by the majority of MMA fans, there would have been even more outrage over this fight compared to GSP vs Hendricks. I wonder why Dana didn't throw a complete fit, and rage about damage?
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I was fine with both outcomes

GSP/Hendrix the first round definitely could have been a draw and GSP would have kept his belt and when a guy loses 2 of the last 3 rounds and doesn't go all out in the 5th after having a guy hurt in the 4th he has no room to complain

In the Robbie/Hendrix fight as much as it pains me to admit, Hendrix stood toe to toe that whole fight, giving as good as he got. And pulled away in the 5th when it was not only 2 rounds a piece but pretty even overall to me anyway after 4.

Far as I'm concerned Hendrix got what he deserved both fights. One was a questionable decision he let happen and the second was a decision he earned. If he left in all in the cage in the first fight and a potential robbery in one round cost him I'd probably be on his side. And looking at the Lawler fight, I'd say he learned his lesson about digging deep and not being conservative and trying to do just a bit more. My respect for Hendrix after that 5th round went up as much as one round could ever do for a fighter. And I wanted Robbie to win bad. But sometimes you just gotta tip your cap to the other guy
 
Kalmah said:
Maybe he would have won if it was PRIDE rules/judging or whatever, but that last round costed him the fight from what I remember. At least if you're scoring the fight by the 10 point must system.
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he was up 3-1 heading into 5th. He totally dominated handricks
 
grimballer said:
he was up 3-1 heading into 5th. He totally dominated handricks
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Is it possible round 2 has kind of blurred its way into 3 and 4?

Robbie won 3 and 4 more decisively IMO with power shots but he really didn't get going until round 3. Hendrix did most the work the first two rounds

I'd be curious if you'd feel the same after watching it again. Don't know why he abandoned the kicks the last round either unless he was just tired and worried about a TD. Although I guess he only had a few minutes. I'm not gonna say he was out on his feet in the 5th but he was cloudy a few times on shots that would have knocked anyone rise out. But anyway, I thought it wasn't that controversial that it was 2-2 going into the 5th
 
I would say that's debatable; but that's to be known between both of them (Hendricks & Lawler)- which goes to show how arbitrary damage-scoring can be.
 
Ah, the ten point must...
Where Fighter B beat fighter A , and its somehow ok.... *sigh*

Significant Strikes
Round 1
Fighter A - 100
Fighter B - 1

(Fighter A is outlcassing Fighter B and is pummeling him, but Fighter B has a tough chin)

Round 2
Fighter A - 110
Fighter B - 1

(Fighter B is in a bloody Pulp now, bell saved him twice, and ref didnt stop Fighter A pounding him. Fighter A arms are now Exhausted.)

Round 3
Fighter A - 20
Fighter B - 21 (one extra Jab)

Round 4
Fighter A - 20
Fighter B - 21 (one extra Teep)

Round 5
Fighter A - 20
Fighter B - 21 (one extra weak leg kick)

Fighter B wins 3 rounds vs 2 rounds.

FLAWED........
A crude example on how GSP won vs Hendricks. Jones over Gus, & Hendricks vs Lawler. More to name, but these were most recent and high profile.
 
I agree with Robbie I had him winning the fight he had Hendricks in the most trouble. That last round though he kind of coasted.
 
They both whooped each others asses.

Hendricks had a damaged eye and Robbie's entire right side of his face was bruised up.
 
new_mexico1 said:
The scoring or criteria has nothing to do with crappy judges overvaluing a takedown toward the end of a round. Using the system in place you can give it the weight it deserves. There is nothing in the criteria that would truly lead to judges giving takedowns so much weight. Even with things like "Octagon/Cage Control, it's not there. Control is a secondary criteria that is to be weighed less than the more important ones. It's used to help create a broader picture of the fight and it means much more than simply taking your opponent down and doing very little with it. Shit, a fighter can be displaying octagon control and generalship from the bottom.

This is a problem with the judges. And no, it's not the system hampering them. Lol. It's actually a ridiculous thought with many of the decisions. It's simply bad judging. Those very same judges would still be overvaluing things like takedowns in any other system.



With the 10 point must, a round with little significance and rounds with more can be scored properly. The numbers are there. Again, it's judges refusal to use the system. More 10-10s, 10-8s and even 10-7s essentially solves any problems with the weight rounds are given. The system is there to be used properly. It's not the system's fault that fans and judges seem to not be able to understand it.

Unless you're looking at some non-updated criteria, you can't interpret it as the number of strikes over an advantage in quality.


http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2012/7/1...ns-abc-changes-unified-rules-scoring-mma-news
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Fair post new_mex, and I don't say judges don't play a significant part in the poorness of judging, however the system has definite and fundamental flaws, and I'll do my best to illustrate with examples...

What I'm arguing is that the Unified System 1. Encourages MMA fighting that is not consistent on in alignment with the spirit of a 'fight' and 2. Is unbalanced, and when used correctly can still result poor judgement.

I'll try to show with examples where appropriate how a judge could correctly use the system (even using 10-8, 7 correctly), but in many circumstances still have a result which is not consistent with the expectations of common sense judging (as once you go scoring round by round, there is no room for 'overall' common sense, which is part of the problem)

My main two Unified Rules flaws are:

Criteria
I've always advocated a criteria that aligns with actual fighting - the goals of combat being to finish and/or damage your opponent, and them being number 1 priority and the highest reward.

Looking finely at the latest updated Unified Rules in 2012 it does seem to align better to this concept. I don't like that damage is explicitly removed and that 'control' is in the criteria at all, but I think you are right in this is where judges are still using the mindset of old, where top position is control and control is looked at EQUALLY as effective striking/grappling as it was pre-2012.

Even so, I dislike the current effective grappling definitions where takedowns are rewarded but taking the fight from ground to standing is not equally rewarded (which it should be IMO). So I think there is still great bias in favour of the fighter wanting to take the fighter to the ground and or being 'on top'.

Regardless of whether being on your back is disadvantageous or not, I don't believe there should be any 'benefit of the doubt' given to any position, and instead of WHERE the fight takes place, WHAT HAPPENS is what should be scored.

SO basically I think control should be removed from the criteria, and 'effective grappling' qualifies that each exchange in the fight should be judged on its merits disregarding of the position it takes place in.

Next, and just as crucially...


Methodology of round by round scoring (especially for such limited round fights)

Now, the round by round as a concept might work better and be less open to error if there are were many more smaller length rounds, like a scoring in boxing where there are 12-15 three minute rounds or there were more 'sub rounds' scored within the current MMA length 5 minute rounds. Scoring round by round for a THREE round fight is really inappropriate.

It is my belief is that you either score 'overall' - like judging as you would a standard round but instead applying it to one big round (the whole fights) i.e Pride/OneFC, OR you score a fight frequently in separate scoring milestones (i.e. every minute or so) and add it up (for greater granularity).

Is it stands, adding up once every 5 minutes leads to issues. Particularly when there's only 4 options (10-10, 10-9, 10-8 and 10-7), and given such an impact 10-7 and 10-8 have, they are rarely if ever used. And 10-10 is also rarely used. But I agree they SHOULD be used, but even using them 'appropriately' raises other issues.

Take this scenario:

A fighter (Fighter A) wins the first round by doing very little but securing a takedown half way through the round and then controlling his opponent, avoiding any submission threats and stopping his opponent from returning to the feet. Basically minimal damaging strikes. He gets a universal 10-9 as he clearly won the round, but minimal if any real damage was done.

The second round it goes the opposite way, but this round resembles JDS/Cain II round 1 or Overeem/Mir round 1 (still, universally agreed 10-9 judged rounds).

Now here Fighter B has completely turned around the fight and is now clearly in control, yet scoring wise, the system tells me up until the fight, its a draw. That doesn't make sense to me, as all the momentum is with fighter B, he has taken over the fight and done a lot more overall damage and threats of finishing.

Any fan/fighter/judge using their own common sense would be able to see that Fighter B should be 'winning' at this point or if the fight was to be finished then and there, a draw is not the common sense result. If you scored that 10 minute section of fighting 'overall' rather than spitting the scoring milestone in half a more meaningful result would be gotten.

So two things come from this, either one 10-9 round isn't worth the same as another 10-9 round - which is the first flaw as it happens all the time (and round 2 might worth a 10-8 in comparison as really, in terms of overall significance round 1 had nothing compared to the overall context as round 2 did)

So you might argue the round should have been a 10-8 to demonstrate a better granularity between the significance of the rounds. Fair enough, the judge is using the system. But what if the events of rounds 1 and 2 were swapped? Likely a judge would have be happy with the 10-9 round call for the first, but even though round 2 has nothing on the first, the judge is still forced to give it a 10-9 also.

My point is coming down to: There is just no unambiguous and consistent means of allocating a 10-9 or 10-8, 10-7's and even when done 'right', one 10-8 might not equal another 10-8, etc.

The other point is, if we are going to go the 'scoring' round (arbitrary allocation of round value)- there are just too few 'scoring milestones' to adequately cover the flow and makeup of the fight.

So this is just one example of where I see how the fundamentals of the system are not perfect even when used correctly.

I've always advocated a good 'judge' look at the fight from an overall perspective and evaluate it with all the nuance, context taken into account and common sense at their disposal. Otherwise its like looking at a jigsaw puzzle pieces and trying to appease the finished picture. Even if round by round was tallied and they simply USED that information as part of their decision making process to make their own final JUDGEMENT on an overall basis would be a better way to go (rather than just tallying up rounds).

I really think there is a better way.


Anyway, that turned out to be a long post. Anyway, if you made it this far, thanks for reading :)
 
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branchtan said:
LOL @ define damage. Mr. philosophical here. 90% of your posts are a pile of crap.
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Sooooo, you can't define damage in the context of an MMA fight I take it?
 
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