Breaking Down the Scoring System That Allowed Machida to Win
by fuzzy wuzzy on Nov 2, 2009 8:46 AM EST
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Being a big time Machida nuthugger, I went in with the idea that he was going to dominate. Although I thought the fight was very exciting, there was NO question that Shogun got robbed (I rarely use that word). It was only a combination of judges not understanding MMA and a flawed scoring system that allowed Machida to "win." Here's why:
I felt that Round 1 was a toss up, Rounds 2-3 probably Shogun and Rounds 4-5 definitely Shogun (but not enough for a 10-8 round.) In other words, I wouldn't argue if one scored the rounds Machida-Machida-Machida-Shogun-Shogun but Machida did NOT win that fight. Barely winning three rounds is not as good as clearly winning two rounds especially if those two rounds come at the end of the fight.
So how to score a striking battle? The easiest way to do it would be simply to give the fight to whomever landed the most strikes, 82 landed by Rua to 42 by Machida per Fight-Matrix. Obviously this isn't the best way because a foot stomp is not the same as a shin to somebody's head; power must be taken into consideration. But it's not just total power delivered that's important, rather it is power in relation to your opponent's toughness.
Judging each round in isolation is inherently flawed and will never work. It is difficult enough to judge in real time if a strike landed, if it landed cleanly with power and most importantly, if it truly damaged a fighter. A small level of uncertainty is acceptable, but when it gets compounded multiple times, it becomes a huge uncertainty. Barring a knockdown, this makes judging based on the current rules more a matter of opinion than fact.
Three rounds in, I subjectively thought that Shogun was ahead but did not know for sure. Certainly I might have missed a few power lefts landed by Machida and those might have made all the difference. It was only by watching rounds 4 and 5 that I objectively knew that Shogun had convincingly won the first three rounds. I knew this by paying close attention to Machida's "ENERGY" if you will. He was drained, he was beaten.
This is why I'm an advocate of judging a fight in its entirety. The most conclusive and least error prone way to assess which fighter is ahead (=which fighter has the most left to give = which fighter has taken the least damage RELATIVE to his constitution) is to see how they react in later rounds.
Look at Machida's face at the end... look at how slow he was... how flat footed he was... how he limped around... how he had the spirit beat out of him... look at the Fight-Matrix numbers... look at the hospital records... and tell me that he truly won that fight.
What's even worse is that this was relatively a pretty easy fight to judge in that it was a pure striking affair. What's going to happen when we mix in grappling and submissions? Obviously this is a rhetorical question that us hardcores already know the answer to even if we do not want to admit it. What a sad day for the sport.
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Your premise is flawed
“Judging each round in isolation is inherently flawed and will never work”
Whether or not that is true the fact is that is how the current set of rules is written. If you don’t disagree that the first three rounds could have gone to Machida then you agree, according to the rules, that it was not an unfair decision, and definitely not a “robbery”.
by ufc4 on Nov 2, 2009 9:32 AM EST via mobile reply actions
It was not the system that resulted in the decision, it was the judges.
Look at the numbers from Fight Metric and Compustrike, Shogun did enough to win a decision. Peoples has openly said he discounted the leg kicks. I would bet he was not the only one.
Better judging, not a new system, is needed.
Peoples does make good points about how defense is an important part of "Octagon Control"
And I agree with him. If one fighter wants the fight standing, and the other fighter wants the fight on the ground, then I’m going to award points to the guy who successfully gets the fight where he wants it to be after every moment where there’s a chance it could change.
So the fight starts standing up. Neither guy is responsible for that, so neither guy gts points for it. But then if one guy shoots for a takedown, that’s a moment wherein the location of the fight can change. If the takedown is successful, I want to give points to the guy who successfully took down his opponent. If the takedown gets stuffed, then I want to give points to the guy who successfully kept the fight standing.
In fact, I even want to give points to the guy on the bottom who’s just holding on if the fight gets stood up. He wanted the fight standing, and he made it happen by rendering the guy on top of his ineffective.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what scoring system we use as long as the system is applied fairly. In the Shogun-Machida fight, I think that happened. As fuzzy wuzzy says, it wasn’t unreasonable to score the fight 3 rounds to 2 for Lyoto, and thus Lyoto wins the fight.
If the argument is that scoring the rounds individually is somehow the wrong way to score the fight, I disagree, because I don’t think it makes sense to say there’s a right or wrong way to score the fight. The round-by-round system is a way to score a fight, and it’s the way we currently use, and under that system Machida won the fight.
I like using semi-colons; they make me feel smart.
Meh
simply controlling where the fight took place isn’t the essence of cage generalship. Effectively using distance to initiate and counter in the striking game, pressing the opponent against the cage and using strikes, etc etc are all examples of ‘octagon control’. Which is exactly what Rua did- he chopped Lyoto’s legs up with kicks, countered effectively when he came in with a flurry of punches, and presented a more multi- faceted and efficient approach. The statistics support this.
One could also say that Shogun’s takedown attempts kept Machida honest, and made him more gunshy in the striking. Defense is not a valid means of scoring points, that’s why Rua’s takedown attempts shouldn’t count against him, nor for him.
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'09 is the year of the FW's.
by ElliotMatheny on Nov 2, 2009 2:01 PM EST up reply actions
And I disagree.
Defense is absolutely a valid means of scoring points when it plays directly into one of the stated criteria. Otherwise there’s no way to reward a fighter for keeping the fight standing when his opponent would clearly like to do otherwise.
I like using semi-colons; they make me feel smart.
I just don't understand that at all.
Is a sprawl damaging in any way, shape, or form? I could see your point if the fight in question was some kind of striker vs. grappler match where the striker was winning the standup and sprawling expertly, but that’s not the case with Shogun/ Machida. Shogun went for takedowns when Lyoto overextended himself and left himself open, and although he did defend the takedowns, several times Rua was able to use that clinch to press Lyoto against the cage and drill his thighs w/ knees.
Fighters shouldn’t be rewarded for keeping the fight standing unless they’re WINNING in the standup.
Supporting all Las Vegas MMA. Xtreme Couture FTMFW.
'09 is the year of the FW's.
by ElliotMatheny on Nov 2, 2009 5:00 PM EST up reply actions
A sprawl is not damaging, but the scoring system doesn’t rely on damage. It refers to the components of a fight that enable damage. So even if I don’t do any damage to you, that I put you in a position where I can do damage and you can’t matters. Me putting you in a crucifix is good for me and bad for you – regardless if just tap your head with little baby punches while I have you there.
I don’t see how the damage argument is at all relevant. Damage is part of “effective striking”, but that’s it. That’s only one of four scoring criteria.
I like using semi-colons; they make me feel smart.
You're not getting it
in the case of Machida/ Rua, Rua’s takedown attempts, which Lyoto stuffed, lead to 2 different outcomes throughout: either Lyoto making a clean break, or Rua pressing him against the cage and kneeing his thighs, or landing the occasional punch/ elbow. Lyoto never won the clinch sequences that followed a Shogun takedown attempt, so why should he be rewarded?
Machida got the worse of the striking in the clinch and at range, plain and simple. So whether or not he controlled where the fight happened, he got beat in those areas.
Supporting all Las Vegas MMA. Xtreme Couture FTMFW.
'09 is the year of the FW's.
by ElliotMatheny on Nov 3, 2009 1:52 AM EST up reply actions
You're not getting it.
Yes, Lyoto consistently got beat in the striking regardless of where the fight took place, so in terms of effective striking, Rua was superior.
But simply determining where the fight takes place matters, regardless of the outcome of that choice. That’s octagon control. That also counts.
The scoring system doesn’t explicitly weight the two, so it’s up to the judges to decide which is more important.
If you try to take me down but I don’t let you, then I’ve controlled the octagon. If then you dominate me on the feet, you’ve had more effective striking. But both need to be considered under the current system.
I like using semi-colons; they make me feel smart.
This is exactly my opinion
I find it baffling that people count stuffing a takedown as scoring…Let me break it down. A fighter stuffs a takedown because he wants the fight to remain standing because he feels that is where his advantage is. The scoring comes as a result of the fighter who stuffed the takedown getting the better of the standup as a result of him stuffing the takedown, rather than him scoring points from stuffing the takedown alone. If he stuffs the takedown which initiaies a clinch which results in him eating knee’s, he loses that exchange period. There is no points in stuffing a takedown, it is done solely so the other fighter doesn’t end up in an advantageous position where he can score.
by Hendo_One-Shot on Nov 2, 2009 6:16 PM EST up reply actions
By that reasoning
would you credit a fight less who dominates the stand-up when his opponent doesn’t go for takedowns? If not, then you’re not giving the defending fighter any credit for his defense at all, even though by having to defend his job is more difficult.
If you score a guy lower for having an opponent who doesn’t try to take him out of his comfort zone, that would make your position consistent, but then you’d also be scoring a fighter based on something over which he has no control. A lot like bull-riding, actually.
I like using semi-colons; they make me feel smart.
Unbelievable how a judge can openly pick and choose what legal techniques to score and what to disregard. Even more unbelievable how he can do it and still keep working.
by Monday Morning Martial Artist on Nov 2, 2009 2:09 PM EST up reply actions
Agreed, it's ludacris
Obviously Peoples has never taken a good leg kick, I mean honestly- leg kicks HURT. And the whole ‘effort to finish a fight’ spiel is bullshit, nowhere in the rules does it say that whoever is trying to ‘finish the fight’ should win. However, effective striking is one of the criteria, and all I know is that Shogun WITHOUT A DOUBT landed more effective strikes than Lyoto, round for round, and in the fight as a whole.
Supporting all Las Vegas MMA. Xtreme Couture FTMFW.
'09 is the year of the FW's.
by ElliotMatheny on Nov 2, 2009 5:04 PM EST up reply actions
Yes he did.
But did he grapple more effectively? We know at least one judge thinks he lost on the octagon control criterion. How about aggression?
Effective striking is only one aspect of the scoring system, and it’s a round-by-round calculation. Even if Shogun had more effective striking in every individual round (which I don’t think he did), that alone can’t win him the fight.
I like using semi-colons; they make me feel smart.
My take on it
is that the grappling cancelled out. And as for agression, I thought they both took turns being the agressor and countering.
Shogun OUTFOUGHT Machida, plain and simple. It’s just that for some reason the Judges and our current judging system failed in this regard
Supporting all Las Vegas MMA. Xtreme Couture FTMFW.
'09 is the year of the FW's.
by ElliotMatheny on Nov 3, 2009 1:54 AM EST up reply actions
And my point is that the standard by which we determine whether one guy oufought the other
is determined by the scoring system.
We can’t have two guys fight, with the rules known to both of them, and then when the fight is over tell them that the rules were different and we just didn’t tell them.
That would be grossly unfair.
And I don’t think your conclusion can be “plain and simple” without you detailing the standard by which you measured the fighters.
I like using semi-colons; they make me feel smart.
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