And it might be the most ridiculous judging snafu I’ve seen since I can remember. I watched this entire bout thinking… 49-46 Beebe easily. I was right in line with what Nate was updating, and I thought nothing of it, until the scores came out.

I thought they mixed the names up on the card, to be perfectly honest. It baffles me how anyone can judge a fight in that manner. Fans in the crowd with no understanding of MMA probably would have given that fight to Beebe.

MMA is successful enough, modern day, that major organizations lobbying for regulation may need to turn the tables, so to speak. MMA is profitable to these territories; so Zuffa and the various other pro-MMA constituents need to begin asking the remaining unregulated states for higher standards in their athletic commissions. I haven’t seen this fight to know how outrageous the scoring was, but I’m aware of the many sources that are angered by it. I’ve long said that one of the most poisonous elements of our sport is the lack of credible judging. Lengths need to be taken to refine the criteria and methods for scoring fights, so results like this can be explained properly.

This was a clear case of highway robbery, the other bouts were all judged with at least some respect to who actually won them (see: Runez/Dodson) meanwhile the Easton/Beebe fight was judged via opposite day rules.

Easton landed better strikes standing, no doubt about that, however; Beebe controlled more than half of the fight via having both hooks in on Eastons back, while not flattened out (until the final round) this is essentially the second worst position you can have in grappling, much less MMA where you can actually be hit.

All of the people I was there with from the camp I train at were laughing this one off as a positional dominance decision and admonishing Easton for not going for broke to try to improve his position; the HUGE group of Capital Jiu Jitsu people sitting near us were also talking the fight off by the 4th round after Easton showed inability to defend the take down or shake Beebe off of back control… or even keep his hooks out. There is just no way that the judges in this fight should have their jobs, they completely ignored reality and shot the decision to who had the crowd behind them (Easton had an abundance of folks behind him, myself included, not just because he’s the hometown guy but Team Lloyd Irvin had a bajillion folks at the event… cool new logo btw).

I cannot believe anyone, Easton, Irvin, Judges, Anyone… thinks Easton won this fight, it just isn’t the truth and it made a huge dent in my opinion of the VA commission as well as not exactly being an acceptable ending to a night of very good fights.

I’m hugely disappointed in the decision and hope there’s some way to have it contested, or at least I hope that something good will come of this.

As an aside; I didn’t get to hear the commentary because of actually being there but from what I read around the area and hear from people I hear Luke did a bang up job and was one of the best things about the show.

Second aside: Lights going off during omoplata attempt… not cool.

Luke,

To what extent do you feel the judging in the Easton v. Beebe fight was retribution for Beebe having put the Virginia Athletic Commission in a spot when last he was scheduled to fight Mike Easton?

When Steve told me that the judges robbed Beebe, My immediate reaction was “of course they did. They were looking to pursue legal action against Beebe, so why wouldn’t they skew the judging in favor of the home town boy?”

That, to me, is a worse circumstance than the ignorance about which you are so livid.

Luke, does the commission have the power to overturn a judges decision?

Luke, you made several mentions of Virginia’s illogical judging rules. Do you mean the judges’ scoring system for the fights? I would think that the Unified Rules would be in effect unless the promotion itself had any alterations to the rules. Are there any examples you could mention before posting about them in more detail?

Are you criticizing the commission for hiring bad — or just plain inept — judges, or are you saying the judges gave the fight to the hometown boy? If it’s the latter, something needs to be done about this quickly before MMA outside of Nevada and California turns into the corruption we see in boxing all the time, like Diaz vs Malignaggi.

but this is where that old phrase,“Don’t leave it in the hands of the judges!” comes from. I think that this is the downside to the lighter weight divisions, these guys just don’t have the power to knock out the competition. They have tramendous cardio though, which always makes for a fun fight to watch.

That decision soured an otherwise fun night of fights. I was wondering if anyone else was annoyed by that guy who kept saying, “Rip that Rhino” during the Tim Woods fight.

I have no knowledge of this fight, and thus, can’t comment on the substantive merits—but props to Luke for going against the grain and writing such an article in the first place.

Yeah, but when is the commission going to ban Easton from fighting in his underwear? That was uncalled for.

Luke, tell the UWC guys that we’d love to have them come run a show in North Carolina. Let me know if you think they’d be interested.

Inside fights links to this:

Luke Thomas over at Bloody Elbow has published the first part of an in-depth look at Mike Easton’s controversial victory over Chase Beebe at last weekend’s "UWC: Redemption" card.
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Easton landed a split decision victory in a fight that Beebe obviously won. Beebe dominated the fight so completely that it’s incomprehensible that Easton was awarded the victory. "Big" John McCarthy, who served as the referee for the bout, called the decision a "crime", and many are calling for an official investigation into the judges that the Virgina athletic commission appointed for the bout.
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Luke’s piece is a must-read, and I urge you to go take a look.

I’m really looking forward to tomorrow’s installment. It’s important that as much noise and fuss and revelations be made about these things as possible :)

Wow…I guess you take someone’s championship away with lay-and-pray? Taking someone down and being more concerned with holding them there then inflicting any real damage shouldn’t give you a fight, much less a championship.I was at a ringsided table, and no, I’m not a judge, but I can tell you the few times Chase did attempt strikes all but two of them were blocked. Mike was the aggressor, landed far more strikes and was the only fighter to inflict any damage during the bout. 2 to 3 RNC attempts where Chase’s arm never made it past Mike’s chin don’t really amount to much. Easton was calmly talking to Lloyd Irvin the entire time he was on the ground and you’d best believe nobody was talking to either corner when they were on their feet. Man, I haven’t seen some folks this upset since the days days of Tommy Morrision and Cooney. . I guess the next time folks want another Morrison they should look to someone else who didn’t claim an injury for the previous fight and ended up fighting two weeks later in Japan..