the Problem with Judging

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JoshR86

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The main issue with Judging is simple, there's 2 many criteria to score on the 10 point system in a 3 round fight.

For one boxing has a 100 possible points in a fight and 120 in a championship fight, although fights can go anywhere from 4 to 12 majority will be 10 or 12 when discussing the upper echelon of boxing.

Now compare that to 30 points for a non title fight and 50 points for a championship bout, this is why boxing scoring method doesn't and shouldn't apply to mma.

There is a system that has been used and it's the .5 system,

This system would've worked like this for the GSP vs Hendricks bout.

Round 1 - GSP 10 Hendricks - 9.5
Round 2 - GSP 9 Hendricks 10
Round 3 - GSP 10 Hendricks 9.5
Round 4 - GSP 9 Hendricks 10
Round 5 - GSP 10 Hendricks 9

Which at the very best would've been a draw for GSP.
Few could argue the effectiveness of the .5 system in being more accurate.

Another problem is that in this current system losing a point is the equilevant as losing 2 or 3 points in boxing, this is why it's harder to enforce the rules because of the severity for grabbing the cage is like getting 3 points taken away in a boxing ring, it's unheard of and is unfair, lose half a point and ref's could be more strict in enforcing the rules.

What's the point of having more judges when the system is broken??? Get rid with the 10 point system and watch how much better the judging gets.
 
The problem isn't too few possible scores, it's too many. They don't use anywhere near the 10 available points. You rarely see a 10-7 round, except when a ref should have stopped it, and never a 10-6. A half-point system would be the equivalent of a 20-point must system.

I'd rather see 4 or 5 points max, and have those simply defined. Example:

Even score: no discernable advantage for either fighter.
1-point advantage: small but discernable edge for one fighter.
2-point advantage: solid advantage for one fighter, the other is still competitive.
3-point advantage: big advantage for one fighter, the other still trying but without much success.
4-point advantage: all one-sided for one fighter, the other just surviving.
5-point advantage: should have been stopped.

There would still be controversies, but a simpler system like the above would make what some judges are getting away with a lot more obvious to everyone.

I don't know why to keep the "must" thing either. it's just another useless confusing thing. Just give a plus score, either 1-0, 2-0, 3-0, etc. (or 1-1 for even rounds.) For penalties, take away one point, even if that gives a fighter a negative score for the round.
 
I think the bigger problem is that judges have very wide differences in terms of licensing requirements. This has been a longstanding problem.

From 2013...

Some states and tribal commissions require training, but some do not. Some require that people get updated every 1-2 years, but some do not. Something we're very concerned about is, if you've been a boxing official for 10 years, you're automatically going to become an MMA official at the highest level. Those are the things that are challenging. Along with the rules, states and tribal commissions are allowed to do whatever they want to. They have recommendations from the ABC about what they should do, but whether they do it or not is up in the air.
Click to expand...

http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2013/12/21/5231434/UFC-judging-the-judges-MMA-Nick-Lembo-Rob-Hinds

In other words, people who are NOT qualified to be judges of a MMA bout are being permitted to judge MMA in some jurisdictions. They have no MMA experience, have never cross trained in multiple MA's (let alone MMA), and they don't have strict oversight of their decisions.

Depending on the luck of the draw, you can end up in a state with better than average judges, or somewhere where some judges don't have a clue.

An incremental point system won't fix that. More consistent judge criteria and judge oversight will fix it.
 
vladimir said:
The problem isn't too few possible scores, it's too many. They don't use anywhere near the 10 available points. You rarely see a 10-7 round, except when a ref should have stopped it, and never a 10-6. A half-point system would be the equivalent of a 20-point must system.

I'd rather see 4 or 5 points max, and have those simply defined. Example:

Even score: no discernable advantage for either fighter.
1-point advantage: small but discernable edge for one fighter.
2-point advantage: solid advantage for one fighter, the other is still competitive.
3-point advantage: big advantage for one fighter, the other still trying but without much success.
4-point advantage: all one-sided for one fighter, the other just surviving.
5-point advantage: should have been stopped.

There would still be controversies, but a simpler system like the above would make what some judges are getting away with a lot more obvious to everyone.

I don't know why to keep the "must" thing either. it's just another useless confusing thing. Just give a plus score, either 1-0, 2-0, 3-0, etc. (or 1-1 for even rounds.) For penalties, take away one point, even if that gives a fighter a negative score for the round.
Click to expand...

pretty much this.

the judges dont like scoring rounds anything other than 10-9s. im surprised half of sherdog cant seem to realize that this is the main problem with the judging.

the frankie vs maynard 2, round 1 should have been scored a 10-6 for maynard since he almost KO'd frankie 3 times but frankie still managed to survive.
 
This is just the same shit in a different wrapper. Let them score the fight as a whole and have only two judges there and 10 watching the broadcast. The majority vote of the 10 watching the broadcast count as one judge.
 
The 10 point must system is fine I think. It's how it's implemented that is the problem. i.e. 95% or more of the rounds are scored using only 10% of the scoring range that's available to the judges. You don't need a half point system when judges don't even come close to making use of the range available to them currently. Nor do you need a 0-5 system like the other guy proposed in the thread, although the idea behind the guidelines he proposed to more accurately signify a fighter's advantage in the round is spot on to my thinking. The 10 point must has 11 different numbers available to them to accurately measure what happened during a round and how big of an advantage a fighter had. Use them.
 
xMaxPower said:
pretty much this.

the judges dont like scoring rounds anything other than 10-9s. im surprised half of sherdog cant seem to realize that this is the main problem with the judging.

the frankie vs maynard 2, round 1 should have been scored a 10-6 for maynard since he almost KO'd frankie 3 times but frankie still managed to survive.
Click to expand...

Yes.

The 10-9 robots in charge of deciding the outcome are the problem. Not the system itself.
 
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Giving half points is just a way to keep the things as they were; It's better than what it is now, but still far from the ideal.

I think I've never seen a 10-7 round ever, at least as far as I can remember.
 
Lint2 said:
Giving half points is just a way to keep the things as they were; It's better than what it is now, but still far from the ideal.

I think I've never seen a 10-7 round ever, at least as far as I can remember.
Click to expand...

The last 10-7 round(s?) I can remember being given out was Quarry-Starnes. Besides that "fight" I can't recall another instance off the top.
 
.5 a point doesn't solve anything. Judges need to understand what they are judging and score more objectively. It's as if they all went to the Crossfit Certification Course for MMA Judging. And sadly there's quite a bit of truth to that statement.
 
I dont find it complicated. Effective striking, grappling and octagon control. Not much to it
 
People don't get it, you can't score a 5 round fight the same as a 12 round fight, 1 point in boxing is worth 3 in mma, so the punishment is literally 3 times worse for a small infraction, wouldn't make sense for a guy to lose on points because of a fence grab, unless it's being done to death, 1 poiny in mma goes a lot farther then 1 round in boxing.

There's also the Pride rules which were awesome, and there yellow and red cards were what put made it a better organisation
 
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