Yeah, that ref was a new kind of awful.

The ref in the Crunkleton-Jansen fight was dreadful, he was clearly a boxing reject who had no clue about the ground game, either that he was paid off to help Crunkleton win because his constant stand-ups gave him the advantage as Jansen had the superior wrestling and control but was getting destroyed in the stand-up. No complaints about the judges for that fight, but the ref shouldn’t be brought back.

As for Cerrone-Smooth, hats off to Ben for surviving those submission attempts but he should have lost the fight, he was in trouble in rounds 1,4 and 5 and if these judges knew anything about BJJ he would have lost them rounds. The only one that was a question mark was round 1, as Ben controlled the latter part of the round and used some nice ground and pound but the tight submissions should have earnt that round for the Cowboy, the only things an escape should earn is a pat on the back and a chance to regroup and to me giving points for surviving a submission would be like giving the round to a fighter after he was dropped by a strike but wasn’t KO’d. Excellent fight though, neither man deserved to lose. Maybe on reflection the fight should have been a draw but hopefully Ben will now beat Varner and give Cerrone a rematch.

I had Assuncao winning 29-28 so I was baffled when one judge gave it Yabouin 30-27, very strange scoring. It seems a regular occurence at WEC events that piss poor judges and refs ruin fights, luckily Assuncao and Jansen didn’t get robbed and Cerrone-Henderson was close but it doesn’t help the credibility of the sport or the organisation when poor scoring or stupid stand-ups decide fights. Honestly I think that the refs should not be allowed to do this period, as it’s up to them to protect the fighters and keep it fair, not to decide what is exciting/boring, you don’t see refs in any other sport interrupting the action to make it more exciting for fans, it turns the sport into entertainment and things like that will have MMA dumped in the same category as pro wrestling by the mainstream media.

The whole judging affair was embarrassing to say the least. Texas has always been known for their ridiculous robberies hell even in boxing the Diaz-Malignaggi fight earlier this year for example. To think incompetent castoff judges from boxing coming over to MMA because they can’t cut it there is a terrifying thought. Big promotions should put these guys on blast and stop going there until sh!t gets fixed. Then maybe the Commissions will start holding judges and ref responsible for their actions. They are costing fighters purses and fans’ great fights. At least in MMA the fans have shown that they can band together and called out commissions over bs like this. Obviously there won’t be an outcry like there was for the Easton-Beebe fight last week but it’s good to see that we can affect change.

the last part of that post is so true, except for the fact that MMA already is about entertainment and if it wasn’t a guy like Brock Lesnar wouldn’t be anywhere near a title in the UFC today. MMA is just a different business and the sport is clearly not having it’s way like the most beautiful sport (football) they have to set things up in MMA to help making it exciting or else most of us wouldn’t be watching.
one thing though that’s embarrassing about MMA is that the guy on top on the ground always gets the round even if he gets killed!

a submission escape scores zero points, a sub attempt does and it is the reason as to why the other guy has to escape.

My parlay was $hit man. I do it big in DREAM and then complete shit here. This night was just full of upsets. People with balls would have killed it here. Oh man i forgot to warn you about Mushin coz you said you were gonna parlay him with Ben. Good thing you went against it man.

I didnt didnt win either. After betting about $300 spread out between 5 fights, I ended up losing $35

Thanks to NNR and VM for giving me the Ben smooth upset special. I only bet that fight cause I respect VM and NNR so much..Thanks for winning me $60 bucks guys!

No problem man, if only we can see upsets like that Fabianno one coming man, we’d be making sweet sweet bank!

Maybe it’s time to go back to boxing, hehehe!

sub escapes = defensive move which really can’t be counted towards trying to finish or win fights. So they should not be awarded any points just like in sub grappling or bjj.

I don’t understand why people think a series of failed sub attempts should count for big points in MMA. They should score the aggressor some solid points, sure… but to me, it’s similar to just holding a guy down after scoring a big takedown, and not doing much damage with the position afterward.

It’s actually more impressive to me when the guy on the receiving end pushes through and gets himself OUT of these tight spots. I’m not saying that escapes should score points or anything, just that failed subs shouldn’t count for much more than cumulative aggression and cage control, for the extent that a fighter has his foe in trouble.

no way, even failed sub attempts can do lots of physical damage to the opponents body with ligament damage and everything else. Not only that, but in my mind is the equivalent of effective striking on the feet. It’s like having your opponent rocked. Even if he doesn’t go out it’s still scoring big points. Now your standard guillotine attempt that was never gonna go anywhere when the guy shoots shouldn’t be scored, but cerrone was very close to choking ben out on numerous occasions and he was tweaking his shoulder alot as well. That has to count. It’s sure a hell of alot more effective than when ben just stood over cowboy and pushed his hips forward. He was much more effective with the GNP in rds 2 and 3 and that’s why he won those rounds. In my mind, near submissions should score as much or more than takedowns and we all know how much td’s determine the outcome of a fight.

Perfectly explained Crowls. takedown and holding is stalling. It will not bring about an end to the contest unless gnp or subs are applied. Sub attempts even failed ones however can bring about and end to the match just like strikes. Simply i award points for offense and give 0 points for defense. Really the hard part of MMA is trying to determine who is generating more offense in order to finish the fight.

Spot on NNR and Crowls, I’ve always said that the problem with the scoring system is not the 10 point must system but rather the lack of credit the judges give submissions, they always seem to back the fighter who controls the fight and not the aggressor when it comes to the ground. A tight submission should be scored the same as a knockdown as the aggressor is close to finishing the fight and his opponent has to recover both from the immediate submission as well as the damage the manoeuver caused for the rest of the fight. Until the scoring is based on aggression and damage both standing and on the ground rather than control, fights will continually be scored in favour of wrestlers.

While I agree that failed subs should still score the attacker some points for the effort, I just don’t see how a cageside judge can be expected to score such attempts as anything more than steady aggression and cage control. Maybe the sub is doing damage, but unless that’s obvious, who really knows? On the other hand, a fist connecting with another person’s head or body can be seen, heard, and easily scored. And Ben landed way more blows from a dominant position, which he controlled throughout the majority of the first 3 rounds.