Thoughts: MMA Scoring

MMA's current scoring system is the 10-point must system, the same system that's used in boxing. With contraversial decisions coming out of the main events of the past two UFC events, UFC 104 and 105, now is a great time to disect the problem with the current system and come up with new possibilities to help the judges score bouts.

The 10-point must system-
With the current system, an MMA bout is judged by striking, grappling and aggression/control by three judges sitting ring or cage side. More times than not the judges do not have monitors to look at in case their personal line of sight gets blocked during the fight. It is really unknown weather the commisions make their judges go through testing or classes before being hired to score a bout. Most of the time all they have to have is prior "judging experience". There's a few things wrong with this. Obviously if the judge can't see the action then there presence is merely a waste of time, therefore its almost rediculous that judges don't have at least one monitor to watch during a fight. I would say they need at least 3-5 different monitors each; each one showing a different angle on the fight. Another problem is the lack of required education. No one is saying that a qualified judge, that just so happened to previously judge boxing, can't judge an MMA bout, BUT this person should have to at least prove their knowledge of the basics in wrestling, grappling and all the positions that MMA provideds that boxing doesn't. And there are plenty.

That is what's so hard about this problem. There's so many variables to an MMA match, it's almost impossible to cover all of those enough to accuratly judge a closely contested fight. At any point in an MMA fight, a fighter has so many options, so the judge will have so many things to look for. Are they striking, going for the takedown, clinching or actually ground fighting. How many judges have a black belt in Jui Jitsu? Probably like one. And it takes getting to that kind of a level to properly score a fight between two black belts when fighting on the ground. Even MMA striking is different than what a boxing judge is used to seeing, especially in the cage. They aren't going to be used to seeing someone kick at another person's legs...they won't think that's as devistating of a strike as getting jabbed, but it is probably even more devistating. They're not used to the angles that the cage provides.



*more after the jump*

If I'm offering anything here, it's not an example of a scoring system that will actually work, i'm just laying out the problems with the current system. If I were going to start putting a true MMA scoring system together I would use a hybrid system that involves aspects of 10-point must, Sport Jui Jitsu , Muah Thai, and wrestling scoring. That's what's going to have to happen in order to get the proper decisions. My system would have room for even more variables; a fight like Machida/Shogun is nearly impossible to score under the current system, in cases like that I would say take all the footage from the fight, go into a room with experts on all aspects of MMA and do nothing but analyze every moment of the fight until there's a unanimous winner with a valid explanation to back it up. Maybe it takes a few days to actually get the decision, but if that's what it takes, that's what it takes.

It will never get to that point, because too much money is involved and they'd never be able to sell a fight and not tell the buying customers the decision after the fight. BUT if I had it my way it would be allowed in some cases. I also think that Brandon Vera vs Randy Couture was one of those cases. That fight should have been closely analyzed before announcing an impulsive decision. Couture may very well have won the fight, but the 2 minutes  they use to get the score cards together was not enough time to realistically figure out why. Especially for those boxing guys that probably don't know too much about what Couture was doing. I would just hate it if a decision was ever given out to someone based on something like their name or drawing power. I don't want that to be in my favorite sport. Leave that shit for boxing.

MMA is beautiful because it's pure. And if we can fix this judging problem it will stay that way.