Statistical Analysis of Questionable Judging in MMA

[BeardotheWeirdo]

http://lastwordonsports.com/2015/05/19/statistical-analysis-questionable-judging-mma/

So I came across this article and found it very interesting... and a little surprising tbh.

15.2 % of the decisions at UFC event are questionable. Edit: A decision is considered to be questionable if the media judging score it differently from the official judges.

We all know MMA judging can be a joke, and the criteria is too vague, some of it is open-for-interpretation. How come nothing is done about this. The commissions are cracking down hard on banned substance users, why not on the corrupt judges?

Are more people are turned away from MMA by corrupt/incompetent judges, or by steroid-users/pot-heads fighting? To me judging is the much bigger problem, do you agree?

Do you think it's incompetence or corruption? Incompetence can be fixed easily, simply fire the guy and replace him with someone who knows what they're doing. Corruption is harder to deal with, you could have the most honest, knowledgeable ref in the world, and if someone threatens to kill his family or offers him tons of money, then that's not something that they can easily walk away from? How do the commissions fix the problem, do they want to?

Is MMA just too competitive nowadays? Sometimes fights are literally too close to call so the decision is bound to be questionable.

Thoughts?

 

[ALAN PARTRIDGE]

interesting

 

[kflo]

Judging shouldn't be subjective. Lol.

 

[LouisBolanos]

Who determines which decisions are or aren't questionable?

A highly competitive fight having a decision one way or another doesn't make it questionable.

This article is basically saying "in my opinion your opinion is wrong". What a pointless statement. Decisions aren't objectively quantifiable.

 

[Slapchoppin]

well i think all decisions are questionable

i'm very good at asking questions

 

[BeardotheWeirdo]

Who determines which decisions are or aren't questionable?

A highly competitive fight having a decision one way or another doesn't make it questionable.

This article is basically saying "in my opinion your opinion is wrong". What a pointless statement. Decisions aren't objectively quantifiable.

If the media judges score it differently then the actual judges it is considered to be questionable. That's the only fair criteria you could use.

Keep in mind, some fights are just too close to call, I addressed that in the post.

 

[AresDesideratus]

Asia and Europe are countries

 

[Air Lats]

Who determines which decisions are or aren't questionable?

A highly competitive fight having a decision one way or another doesn't make it questionable.

This article is basically saying "in my opinion your opinion is wrong". What a pointless statement. Decisions aren't objectively quantifiable.

Yeah. Dude when fights are too close to call, no result is 'questionable'.

I'll have to read the actual article because your analysis is not good. You ask 17 great questions but your statement about fights that are too close to call ALWAYS being 'questionable' makes me think that either these data are worthless or you didn't read the article yourself.

 

[BeardotheWeirdo]

well i think all decisions are questionable

i'm very good at asking questions

Generally speaking I would agree.

In the context of judging an MMA fight based on a specific criteria, not all decisions are questionable, some are clear-cut.

 

[AresDesideratus]

well i think all decisions are questionable

i'm very good at asking questions

Well they actually are, because relying on neutral observers to decide who won the fight based on what they think of what they saw is entirely subjective. If neither fighter got finished then the fight is not truly over and there is no winner. There is a winner of the competition based on rules but this is much closer to winning a game than it is to actually defeating an enemy which would be the purpose of a "real" fight.

 

[KhabibTheBeagle]

Who determines which decisions are or aren't questionable?

A highly competitive fight having a decision one way or another doesn't make it questionable.

This article is basically saying "in my opinion your opinion is wrong". What a pointless statement. Decisions aren't objectively quantifiable.

That's basically what determining shitty judging is. Questioning an opinion. However, it is difficult to justify how Diego Sanchez wins an obscene amount of fights he got his ass beat in.

 

[Air Lats]

These data are worthless to me. The criteria for 'questionable' in the article is:

"For a decision to make the questionable list, there must be credible media scorecards available for comparison. Of those, the ratio in favor of the winner must be 5:3 or worse."

So basically, at least 5 media judges have to think the winner won and at least 3 have to think the loser won.

That allows FAR too many 'too close to call' fights into the data pool.

If the criteria were reversed I would pay attention but these aren't worth a thing to me.

These 'questionable' calls aren't what troubles me about MMA judging. It's the robberies that kill it.

If 4 out of 5 media judges think the loser won then we've got trouble. This is including decisions that a strong majority of media judges AGREE with and calling them questionable.

Wat?

 

[KhabibTheBeagle]

These data are worthless to me. The criteria for 'questionable' in the article is:

"For a decision to make the questionable list, there must be credible media scorecards available for comparison. Of those, the ratio in favor of the winner must be 5:3 or worse."

So basically, at least 5 media judges have to think the winner won and at least 3 have to think the loser won.

That allows FAR too many 'too close to call' fights into the data pool.

If the criteria were reversed I would pay attention but these aren't worth a thing to me.

These 'questionable' calls aren't what troubles me about MMA judging. It's the robberies that kill it.

Too close. Should have 7:1 or even 8:2

 

[Air Lats]

Too close. Should have 7:1 or even 8:2

No, it's even worse than that! They are saying 5 judges thought the winner won and 3 thought the loser won (or worse).

It's just the worst.

Edit: at least that's how I read it.

 

[Gonischua]

Asia and Europe are countries

Exactly

 

[KhabibTheBeagle]

No, it's even worse than that! They are saying 5 judges thought the winner won and 3 thought the loser won (or worse).

It's just the worst.

Edit: at least that's how I read it.

I don't know how they interpreted it. I meant 7/8 judges would have to swing the other way,with only 1/2 scoring for the 'winner'.

 

[konvex]

Well this is kinda stupid..
Not only is it a totally subjective subject ( =))) ) but also the sample size is just to small for most every region apart from the us.

 

[Air Lats]

I don't know how they interpreted it. I meant 7/8 judges would have to swing the other way,with only 1/2 scoring for the 'winner'.

Yeah - I'm saying I totally agree with you. Just showing that their criteria are insanely lax which is what I think you were saying, too.

 

[BeardotheWeirdo]

These data are worthless to me. The criteria for 'questionable' in the article is:

"For a decision to make the questionable list, there must be credible media scorecards available for comparison. Of those, the ratio in favor of the winner must be 5:3 or worse."

So basically, at least 5 media judges have to think the winner won and at least 3 have to think the loser won.

That allows FAR too many 'too close to call' fights into the data pool.

If the criteria were reversed I would pay attention but these aren't worth a thing to me.

These 'questionable' calls aren't what troubles me about MMA judging. It's the robberies that kill it.

If 4 out of 5 media judges think the loser won then we've got trouble. This is including decisions that a strong majority of media judges AGREE with and calling them questionable.

Wat?

Not at least 3 judges have to think loser won. No more than 3 judges can think the loser won.

You bring up a good point though. That does allow for too many close fights to be included. But at the same time if the media are 5:3 for one guy and all the official judges ALL score it for the guy who got only 3 media votes, then it could be a very questionable decision.

For example I looked at the last UFC card (UFC 190) and the first fight was Hugo Viana vs. Guido Canetti. All three official judges scored it 29-28 for Canetti.

2 of the 3 Sherdog judges had it for Hugo, Bloody Elbow scored it for Canetti. MMAfighting.com scored it for Hugo. Bleacher report scored it for Canetti. Fightline had it for Hugo.

The MMA media had it 4:3 for Hugo, all three official judges had it for Canetti. The fight was too close to call, but the real judges didn't find it that way. That could just be a coincidence or it could be the result of incompetence, or corruption. That one wouldn't have been included in his stats because it was 4:3 but it still could've been suspicious.

I perconally don't have the time to do the work he did and see for myself, but I'll be looking at it closer from now on to see how many of these 5:3 scores are really controversial and how many are just close fights

Also the name of the article is "Statistical Analysis of Questionable Judging" not an analysis of robberies.

 

[BOTTICELLI]

Asia and Europe are continents.