Dana White is more than just the President of the UFC; he's also more or less the voice of the people.
And the people are pissed.
UFC 131: "Dos Santos vs. Carwin" went down last night (June 11, 2011) from the Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It was a night of exciting finishes mixed with close decisions.
And any time there are close decisions in MMA, you can bet someone's not happy about the scorecards turned in by the cage side judges.
Or, in this case, everyone.
That's because there were multiple decisions on the card that featured wacky scores, from the 30-27 awarded to Darren Elkins in his fight against Michihiro Omigawa, to the 30-27 awarded to Mark Munoz against Demian Maia.
Even Kenny Florian's featherweight debut, in which he looked strong and steady, was not without shenanigans. He was awarded a 30-27 score despite rather obviously losing the first round to Diego Nunes.
When the night was wrapped up, Dana White put his mouthpiece shoes on and lambasted the judges for their perceived incompetence (via Heavy):
"It's very frustrating and it's horrible. It's just getting to the point now where when you see something that's that blatantly wrong... the hard part for me is you're affecting people's lives. It's one thing... listen; my business, you know, people get pissed off... what people are pissed off about is the fighters. How hard these guys train, how hard they work and to have somebody... we even have television monitors in front of these f*cking guys now. You're watching a television monitor and you still come up with a 30-27 in these fights? You should never judge another fight as long as you live. You don't deserve to be in the fight business, you're hurting these f*cking guys that are out training and working hard. It just absolutely drives me nuts."
The cage side monitors, that have since been approved for each event, apparently did very little to improve a problem that has plagued mixed martial arts for as long as it's been a sport.
But is that really a surprise?
Judging is a subjective thing and no two people are going to witness an event exactly the same. Sure, we can expect that the consensus "correct" opinion should be reached in most instances. But that won't always happen.
There's just too much room for error ... and these judges are human.
That's not to make an argument for their scoring last night, which was admittedly off the wall at times. It's just to remind folks that it's not as easy as it looks and the rules are entirely too open to interpretation.
Still, are you upset at the idea that even cage side monitors don't appear to be helping judges make clear decisions on the action inside the cage?
And will judging in MMA ever reach a point of stability that will make the fans happy?