Would you give Brendan Allen an 10-8 for 4:45 ground control in a 5 minute round?

[muaythaibeast]

If you think that's a 10-10 or anything remotely close then you need to educate yourself on the scoring criteria. That is one of the worst takes I've seen on this site in a long time and that is saying a lot.

I've already laid out the criteria for why if you squint your eyes and turn your head you can try to make a case for Dominance and potentially a 10-8. Not a case I am potentially interested in making, but it's there. I am not going to restate my points when you can just go back and read them and the relevant bits of the Unified Rules I quoted.

Now to debunk the idea of it being a 10-10, which per the Rules is a round in which there is NO difference or advantage discernable to either fighter for the entire duration.

• Allen went forward and scored a successful, impactful takedown.
• Allen kept Imavov on his back for all but 15 seconds of the round.
• Allen landed 21 strikes to to Imavov's five.
• Allen had side control, briefly moved to half guard, stacked Imavov's guard, applied heavy forearm pressure to his throat, etc.

Imavov did... nothing, really. Nothing that's scoreable under the Unified Rules, anyway. He kept Allen from being seriously dominant, but defense is its own reward and doesn't earn you "points". Being taken down, held down, and forced to play defense while your own game is negated by what the other guy is doing to you is not a "neutral" round where you throw your hands up and call it a Draw.

Even if you only want to give Brendan a 10-9 -- which again is totally fair and what I personally leaned toward watching it live -- you still have to admit he won the round on the basis of pretty much every "Plan" provided in the Unified Rules. Effective Grappling? Yeah. Even if you don't consider what he did sufficiently "effective" for some reason, it would have defaulted to Aggression. Wasn't aggressive enough? Okay, no problem. The final format by which to score an otherwise-equal round is Octagon Control, i.e. which fighter dictates the pace of the fight and how/where it plays out... which is exactly what Allen did.

There have been strong candidates for a 10-10 round in MMA before, but this ain't it chief.

He landed the take down into side control. Good offense, but that is all he did.
He maintained a dominant position for a small amount of time before he lost it, and landed a grand total of 5 significant strikes.
There is nothing in that round that even remotely says dominant. No strikes, no submission attempts, and no he ended up in a neutral position after he lost side control.
If we start to reward ineffective grappling with 10-8s this sport will become unwatchable

 

[VinceArch]

You don't win 10-8's without doing significant damage.

 

[Safton]

He landed the take down into side control. Good offense, but that is all he did.
He maintained a dominant position for a small amount of time before he lost it, and landed a grand total of 5 significant strikes.
There is nothing in that round that even remotely says dominant. No strikes, no submission attempts, and no he ended up in a neutral position after he lost side control.
If we start to reward ineffective grappling with 10-8s this sport will become unwatchable

As I already said, I don't think one has to consider Allen's Rd 1 performance to be particularly Dominant nor award him a 10-8. I didn't even do so myself while watching it live. I think there's a case to be made for dominance if one really wanted to go that route; you are incorrect in saying that nothing in the round constituted dominance as I already posted the relevant portions of the Rules and you just decided to conveniently ignore that.

My point of contention in my previous post was the absurd notion that the round was a borderline 10-10, which is just a really bad take. You want to know what will make the sport unwatchable? Handing out 10-10s left and right even when one fighter clearly wins a round.

If you're going to try and debate me, at least engage with the points I'm making.

 

[GSP_37]

In my opinion, can't just be ground control but needs some close sub attempts or GNP.

 

[koa pomaikai]

iii) A round is to be scored as a 10-8 Round when a contestant wins the round by a large
margin by impact, dominance, and duration of striking or grappling in a round.

It’s written as though all three components should be met as it says and instead of or. So if you agree that Allen didn’t meet the ‘impact’ component, then it shouldn’t be scored a 10-8 since we’ve already missed the mark on the first bar. It’s not a perfect science which you already pointed out, but once we add to this the fact that the ‘dominance’ component in that round has a not-so-strong argument then we’re 0 for 2 on the criteria so far.

About the Allen advancing positions part - he didn’t really though. The majority of that round was this sequence: Allen lands in side control for a few minutes, Imavov retains half guard, Imavov retains full guard. That is not Allen advancing positions; it’s him regressing into less advantageous positions as Imavov improved his position by progressively retaining full guard.

So that leaves us with only having met 1(duration) of the 3 components and having to contort to argue having met 2 of 3(duration and dominance). Meanwhile, there’s no real argument for what seems to be the most important piece which is ‘impact.’ If the rules give us three benchmarks, and we can’t even really argue that 2 of 3 were met then I’m not sure what’s left to justify a 10-8.

I think there’s truth to your point that the language of the rules leaves open the possibility for 10-8s to be reasonably scored more often than we see them, but in this case the rules seem to point to 10-8 just not being a reasonable score for that round, at least as I read the info you shared.

The actual rules only states all three existing requires that you “must” give a 10-8.

You may give a 10-8 off dominance without impact, in fact, without any impact.

“Judges shall ALWAYS give a score of 10 – 8 when the judge has established that one fighter has dominated the action of the round, had duration of the domination and also impacted their opponent with either effective strikes or effective grappling maneuvers that have diminished the abilities of their opponent. Judges must CONSIDER giving the score of 10 – 8 when a fighter shows dominance in the round even though no impactful scoring against the opponent was achieved.”

 

[HeffDoesWant]

Control should mean nothing.

I think the ufc recording it and talking about it so much is just due to their preference for American fighters (who predominantly wrestle).

 

[muaythaibeast]

The actual rules only states all three existing requires that you “must” give a 10-8.

You may give a 10-8 off dominance without impact, in fact, without any impact.

“Judges shall ALWAYS give a score of 10 – 8 when the judge has established that one fighter has dominated the action of the round, had duration of the domination and also impacted their opponent with either effective strikes or effective grappling maneuvers that have diminished the abilities of their opponent. Judges must CONSIDER giving the score of 10 – 8 when a fighter shows dominance in the round even though no impactful scoring against the opponent was achieved.”

I am debating the points you've made. I'm saying the dominance needed didn't happen.
He had a takedown into a dominant position, lost it and stalled out the round. Guard is not a dominant position either way.
Dominance would indicate that you controlled the round. Zero sub attempts, 5 strikes and a minute or so of control before Imanov got back to guard doesn't amount to dominance.
He probably did enough to get a 10-9 purely by stalling out the round, but we need to get away from the idea that laying in guard and landing rabbit shots is effective grappling. You are actively avoiding grappling by not attempting anything, making sure the room needed for a sweep or a sub from the bottom isn't there.
A few of the rounds Maia had at Weltwerweight, Cerrone's destruction of Myles Jury, Cain vs Bigfoot Silva are all good examples of effective grappling. The Fitch style of get a takedown and stall out the round with no activity isn't.

 

[RonDante]

if I’m remembering right, he only had half guard and full guard. Neither of those would really be considered dominant positions in grappling. And obviously he had next to no strikes, no submission attempts etc. definitely not a 10-8

 

[koa pomaikai]

if I’m remembering right, he only had half guard and full guard. Neither of those would really be considered dominant positions in grappling. And obviously he had next to no strikes, no submission attempts etc. definitely not a 10-8

It was like side control for 2 mins, he didn’t try to transition to mount until around past mid round I think, which he went from side control to half guard.

 

[koa pomaikai]

I am debating the points you've made. I'm saying the dominance needed didn't happen.
He had a takedown into a dominant position, lost it and stalled out the round. Guard is not a dominant position either way.
Dominance would indicate that you controlled the round. Zero sub attempts, 5 strikes and a minute or so of control before Imanov got back to guard doesn't amount to dominance.
He probably did enough to get a 10-9 purely by stalling out the round, but we need to get away from the idea that laying in guard and landing rabbit shots is effective grappling. You are actively avoiding grappling by not attempting anything, making sure the room needed for a sweep or a sub from the bottom isn't there.
A few of the rounds Maia had at Weltwerweight, Cerrone's destruction of Myles Jury, Cain vs Bigfoot Silva are all good examples of effective grappling. The Fitch style of get a takedown and stall out the round with no activity isn't.

This isn’t jiujitsu, guard has never been a neutral position in MMA, the person on top is winning if no one throws a strike.

The position on top in full guard is far more dangerous than the person at bottom in the full guard since striking is allowed. Full guard being a neutral position is only if you aren’t allowed to strike, this ain’t jiujitsu.

The fights you listed are all MUST 10-8s.
You gotta consider a 10-8 for Allen.

The way you describe dominance, is the same definition as impact. Impact is described as potential to end a fight (subs, damage, ect.). Dominance means dictating where the fight happens, and duration means how long.

If you have impact, dominance and duration, you must give a 10-8.

If there is no impact, you may give a 10-8 based on dominance and duration.

Again, you are describing dominance and impact as the same thing, tell me what they are under your criteria, since the rules lay out 3 criteria, they are 3 different things.

 

[RonDante]

It was like side control for 2 mins, he didn’t try to transition to mount until around past mid round I think, which he went from side control to half guard.

Yea so he didn’t have a particularly dominant position, didn’t achieve anything impactful with the pitter pat shots, didn’t attempt any submissions. No way he gets a 10-8

 

[Mohawk Banditó]

Grappling dominance, can an insanely one sided control ever be a 10-8 without much damage?

Took him down in the first 10 seconds of the round and the opponent never got up, worth an 10-8?

No in this case, but don't listen to the idiots here. Controlling grappling dominance CAN be a 10-8 without much damage. But in that case, you're probably more looking at riding on the back for 4 minutes straight and the guy having to stave off constant RNC attacks

*Edit* here are some snippets from the criteria:

A 10 – 8 Round in MMA is where one fighter wins the round by a large margin...

A score of 10 – 8 does not require a fighter to dominate their opponent for 5 minutes of a round. The score of 10 – 8 is utilized by the judge when the judge sees verifiable actions on the part of either fighter. Judges shall ALWAYS give a score of 10 – 8 when the judge has established that one fighter has dominated the action of the round, had duration of the domination and also impacted their opponent with either effective strikes or effective grappling maneuvers that have diminished the abilities of their opponent. Judges must CONSIDER giving the score of 10 – 8 when a fighter shows dominance in the round even though no impactful scoring against the opponent was achieved...

Dominance in the grappling phase can be seen by fighters taking DOMINANT POSITIONS in the fight and utilizing those positions to attempt fight ending submissions or attacks. If a fighter has little to no offensive output during a 5 minute round, it should be normal for the judge to consider awarding the losing fighter 8 points instead of 9...

 

[Natural Order]

Allen is terrible. MW division is paper thin.

 

[MarleyLynx]

By the rules it isn't. Control time isn't actually even a scoring criteria. Effective aggressiveness and ring control are only second-third tier scoring criteria if you want to lump control time into that

"Holding a position that may be viewed as superior is not sufficient under the scoring criteria of advancing toward finishing the fight"

A paraphrase.

A direct quote:

"Dominance in the grappling phase can be seen by fighter staking dominant positions in the fight and utilizing those positions to attempt fight ending submissions or attacks. Merely holding a dominant position(s) shall not be a primary factor in assessing dominance."

That's the second scoring criteria that comes after the first, impact.

MMA is not a pure grappling sport. "As MMA is an offensive based sport [...]"

Another direct quote. This seems like a common misconception. A demonstration of superior grappling is not sufficient in itself to win an MMA fight. Similar to how a pure display of boxing may win you the scorecards in boxing but in MMA impact is the primary criteria.

Apologies if I misunderstood you.

Unified rules state
A 10 – 8 Round in MMA is where one fighter wins the round by a large margin. A 10 – 8 round in MMA is not the most common score a judge will render, but it is absolutely essential to the evolution of the sport and the fairness to the fighters that judges understand and effectively utilize the score of 10 – 8. A score of 10 – 8 does not require a fighter to dominate their opponent for 5 minutes of a round.

Judges shall ALWAYS give a score of 10 – 8 when the judge has established that one fighter has dominated the action of the round, had duration of the domination and also impacted their opponent with either effective strikes or effective grappling maneuvers that have diminished the abilities of their opponent.

If 4:45 isn't dominating the action of the round or winning the round by a large margin then nothing is.

 

[FreedomCricket]

Moicano gets a 10-8 against BSD in that first round.

Allen does not deserve a 10-8 for that.

 

[NoBiasJustMMA]

No in this case, but don't listen to the idiots here. Controlling grappling dominance CAN be a 10-8 without much damage. But in that case, you're probably more looking at riding on the back for 4 minutes straight and the guy having to stave off constant RNC attacks

*Edit* here are some snippets from the criteria:

A 10 – 8 Round in MMA is where one fighter wins the round by a large margin...

A score of 10 – 8 does not require a fighter to dominate their opponent for 5 minutes of a round. The score of 10 – 8 is utilized by the judge when the judge sees verifiable actions on the part of either fighter. Judges shall ALWAYS give a score of 10 – 8 when the judge has established that one fighter has dominated the action of the round, had duration of the domination and also impacted their opponent with either effective strikes or effective grappling maneuvers that have diminished the abilities of their opponent. Judges must CONSIDER giving the score of 10 – 8 when a fighter shows dominance in the round even though no impactful scoring against the opponent was achieved...

Dominance in the grappling phase can be seen by fighters taking DOMINANT POSITIONS in the fight and utilizing those positions to attempt fight ending submissions or attacks. If a fighter has little to no offensive output during a 5 minute round, it should be normal for the judge to consider awarding the losing fighter 8 points instead of 9...

The Yan vs Sterling rematch where Sterling had Yan's back for the whole round and Yan was constantly having to worry about being choked and got hit some is a good example of a 10-8 round via grappling without damage. Allen didn't do enough with positional dominance/submission threat/striking to get a 10-8 IMO.