Starting Over From Scratch: Rewriting the Judging Criteria in the Unified Rules

Great start.
Combining grappling and striking is often the conclusion I come to, but I think positional control needs a little more development. Think about how you would used Boxing guidelines to outline striking judgment and then adapt that to using wrestling/BJJ/Judo/ect scoring to form this grappling judgment. What I am keying in on is ride time in wrestling or the definition of positions in BJJ that score points. Using terms describing how important these are in the component sports to help express importance in MMA. i.e. ride time is one point while a takedown is two. A near fall can be three and while this doesn’t relate to subs, closeness of the sub or time spend getting out should be a criteria in the same way time relates to a near fall.

One other question I have before I have to run. There are some things you can do in a fight that won’t finish your opponent, but they will gas them, which makes them easier to finish/less likely to mount offense. Repeated takedowns can often just take the wind out of someone because of the effort they have to mount to get up. Is taking the steam out of your opponent worth points?

I think in general I like the system. Though I do think in the case of a tiebreak on “effective offense” takedowns should be weighed as a tiebreaker.

I love your second point. that’s exactly my thought.

i think this is a good idea, and is necessary in light of some recent decisions. however, removing the judges altogether would solve all of these problems. i’m sure some will say it’s barbaric to let a fight go on until there is a winner. some will say that injury will be more prevalent. bottom line is, this is a human, hand-to-hand combat sport and injuries are commonplace. even with the current judging system, there are some who view a 3 or 5 round fight as barbaric anyway. most other sports go into overtime until a clear-cut winner is decided, there is no whining or second-guessing when it’s over. this would put a much stronger emphasis on conditioning as well. can we have an open discussion regarding pros and cons of this suggestion? no bashing please.

Excellent work with this article. I have a question though:
Considering that MMA judges come from Boxing,Kickboxing, or even Grappling, but never MMA, and that every organization has its own ruleset:
if the UFC takes in these new-more specific rather than different-rules, can’t they make a requirement to have a UFC MMA judging license to go to a conference or some summit where they are instructed?
Considering rule changes, they can easily justify this I suppose.I am only an MMA fan, but I feel that becoming an MMA judge is literally just asking for a license if your already one of another combat sport. Considering how many of the judges are common in the events (peoples, rosales, etc.) I am sure they can hold a conference, maybe sponsored by the NSAC to educate or at least reach a consensus on judging.
But then again, the UFC can’t take such actions to fix judging without being accused of fixing fights I would guess.

You lost me at…

1. Removed fighting area control, aggression, and defense from the criteria –

That is a horrible idea the thought that takedowns shouldn’t count is laughable and would really make mma judging an even bigger joke. This is my problem with all the people who want to change the scoring system that isn’t flawed when it’s the judges themselves who need to be changed.

A Submission is recognized as Full and Strong when is one or more of the following occurs:
-The opponent takes time to escape;
-Upon escaping, the opponent does not instantly move to an attack of his own, but instead assumes a defensive posture;
-The defender is ‘In Danger’
- the finish has the potential for completion (if a kneebar, the hips have to be placed correctly, if a choke, the neck must have been reached, etc.);
-The finish in question is not a low percentage submission (wrist lock, body scissor, etc).
Source: http://www.nagafighter.com/index.php?module=rulepage

I like NAGA’s rules for a 2 point submission. It’s obviously different with the 10-point must system, but these rules could be adapted to define “threatening submission attempt.”

I like the idea here.

I think what you’re going for, and hopefully what any future rule changes need to expand on came be summed up briefly as (and maybe you should include something like this, if that’s what you’re going for).

“The purpose of an mma match is to end the fight via (t)ko or submission, when judging the person who did the most to reach those ends should win the round.” Then you can go into these rules to explain what means what and where the emphasis should be.

i like most points except for the one where you want more points awarded from strking in guard.

this is the last thing you want in a sport already having it’s share of lay and pray fighters with wrestling backgrounds. you should get very little point from guard and have incentive to pass the guard, simply getting points for side control is not what mma is about, this isn’t jiu jitsu

Japanese mma have the best way of scoring a fight, it’s based on treathening the opponent with submissions, and will to win the figth! Those “unified” rules sucks! They’re trying to use boxing rules! It does not aply to mma, neither does jiu jitsu rules, or wrestling. Japanese mma is just much more advanced. Those “unifid rules” were made to prilege the wrestlers, awarding poits to takedowns and prohibiting the knees to a downed opponent, alowing boring wrestlers to stay on theyr knees doing nothing! UFC rules sucks, Dream rules rocks!

Just to make it clear, Shogun wont tha bout agaist Lyoto, and Brandon Vera crushed Randy Couture. Even thou the “judges” scored the oposite! The mma fans don’t like those shity wins, and I wish couture instead of acepiting his win, I wish he abidicated of the win and gave it to Brandon Vera, that’s the action expected from a true figther!

1. Throws and takedowns need to count for something. I do agree that one trick pony wrestlers should not be winning fights for a few takedowns and some lay and pray though.

2. There also needs to be some method of scoring the fight progressively. Maybe a 10 point system for each round and then another 10 point score set for the fight or an additional point given to the overall total.

If a fighter lands more strikes and sub attempts, but his opponent lands much more damaging strikes that needs to be accounted for. It is sad to see a fighter land more strikes but can hardly get up to start the third round and his opponent is only lightly bruised but was hit more often. The fighter causing more damage should win, not the fighter that simply landed more. This would also prevent fighters from simply retreating in the third round or fourth and fifth rounds because they think or were told that they won the first 2 or 3.

The only problem here is that we are asking the judges to actually judge instead of just keep score. Maybe we should have a doctor score the entire fight and the judges score the rounds.

Mike, I hope you take the time to read this. I know a lot of people have responded to you and admittedly I’ve barely skimmed their responses. I think you’re way off base.

where to start? in a nutshell, you’re trying to re-invent the wheel when the wheel isn’t broken. the problem isn’t with the judging criteria. the problem is with the judging. the answer isn’t to do away with important scoring criteria such as aggression, ring generalship, TAKEDOWNS (are you kidding me?!), etc. the solution is two-fold: to get some judges who know what the hell they’re supposed to be looking for; and to correct the way the 10-point-must system is used. but before I discuss better ways to do that, let’s expound on why you’re wrong (this is gonna get lengthy):

AGGRESSION:
 imagine the fighter who stalks his opponent around the cage, throwing punches in bunches, but his perpetually retreating opponent successfully covers and blocks all the shots but has to assume an entirely defensive posture in order to do so. this same “perpetually retreating opponent” manages to land one clean shot per round, right to the nose of the more aggressive fighter, snapping the figher’s head back slightly but not stopping his advance or doing any real damage. then the situation repeats itself, round after round. according to your scoring system, the cowardly fighter who managed to sneak in one clean punch per round wins the fight over the fighter who stalked his prey continuously and tried to knock his head off. aggression and ring generalship count for more than you give them credit for. recall: Diego vs Karo (in my book, Karo narrowly won the first two rounds but was blown away in the third. yet Diego managed the win bc of aggression in Rds 1 & 2, and dominance in Rd 3. recall Matt Brown vs Dong Hyun Kim. Matt Brown clearly lost the 1st, stole the momentum and clearly won the 2nd; but although he was clearly the aggressor in Rd 3, he was beaten on technique in that round. even though I had to give Kim the fight, it just sort of felt like Matt Brown did more. as you recall, Cecil Peoples (the village idiot of mma judging) gave Brown the fight. point being in these examples: aggression does make a difference in the eyes of beholders.

TAKEDOWNS/PASSING/ETC:
with all respect, this is more foolishness. what about the fighter who doesn’t want to be taken down bc he perceives his opponent to have an advantage on the ground? if that fighter is then taken down, where he doesn’t want to be, this counts for nothing?? what about imposing one’s will on the opponent…think of it as “aggression + skill”. nothing?? I couldn’t disagree more. that said, I do believe that takedowns count for more than they should. I believe if a fighter takes his opponent down but can’t inflict any damage or pass guard, it shouldn’t count for much. but it should definitely count for something bc, in general, no one wants to be taken down on the other guy’s terms.

in this same vein, no one [sane] wants his guard passed. no fighter can possibly fight more effectively from underneath side control, from underneath mount, or with the other man on his back or in North-South position, than he can from his guard or half-guard. there’s a reason guard passing is worth points in sport jiu-jitsu and a reason it should be worth something in MMA: bc it gives the top fighter a better position from which to inflict damage and win the fight. think of this as the “law of gravity” of the jiu-jitsu universe: there’s no escaping its truth regardless of whether or not you happen to believe in it.

going down the list here…

—five judges? adding more morons is only going to exacerbate the problem. stick to three. three properly trained judges is all that’s necessary.

—I’m not up in arms about it one way or another, but why shouldn’t the judges be able to watch the replay between rounds? if we have the technology, why not let them use it before submitting their score cards? why refuse the fighters an opportunity to have their efforts reviewed once more before passing judgment? seems to me that when careers and livelihoods are at stake, why stick to arbitrary rules such as, “Judges can’t watch replays”?

—this whole issue of judges watching monitors brings up a point I wanted to call Cecil Peoples out on when he made that defense of the Machida/Shogun decision that, in my opinion, only made him look like even more of a crackpot: the ringside seat is not always the best seat in the house. I speak from experience as someone who has reffed and judged numerous MMA cards. the fan at home often times has a better view than the judges do. this is a FACT. trust me. for my money, I’d say rethink the entire system: do we REALLY need the judges at ringside? or would they perhaps be better off sitting in a dark room somewhere, watching the video feed while simultaneously having access to all available camera angles? part of me thinks this may be the way to go; part of me thinks being cageside and hearing the crack of the shin against the thigh or the thud of the blows to a grounded opponent makes a bit of a difference. perhaps the UFC or NSAC/CSAC should commission a study.

—I think your scoring system is flawed, too. this brings me to the second part of my two-pronged solution. I think (i.e. know) one of the big problems with today’s judging is the preponderance of 10-9 scores. this, IMHO, is at the heart of much of the problem with bogus decisions. the judges need to be trained so that the average, run-of-the-mill MMA round is 10-8, not 10-9. consider:

• 10-10: a case could not be made for either fighter winning the round.
• 10-9: round nearly even, tough to score, but one fighter had that one flash of brilliance or did one thing effectively that will tip the round in his favor. if you can make a plausible case for one fighter winning the round, but the best you could do for the other fighter is to say it was even, that should be a 10-9 round. most of the rounds in Machida/Shogun were of this type. the first 2 rounds of Diego/Karo were 10-9 by this system.
• 10-8: a fighter wins a round comfortably. these are the majority of rounds we’re used to seeing in the UFC. think Rd1 of Hendo/Anderson Silva; Rds 1, 2, and 3 of BJ/Sherk; Rd 1 of Rampage/Forrest; Rd 1 of Hendo/Bisping; Rd1 of Machida/Evans; etc. etc.
• 10-7: a fighter dominates a round. think Rd 2 of Rampage/Forrest; Rd 1 of Lesnar/Mir rematch; Rd 4 of BJ/Florian (prior to sub, obviously); Rd 3 of the Forrest/Tito rematch; Rd 1 of the Forrest/Tito first fight; every round of Quarry/Starnes; Rd 1 of Mir/Nogueira; etc. etc.
• 10-6: this would be such a rare animal that I can’t really think of an example. if a fighter is getting beaten this badly, the fighter will usually get finished or the ref will stop it. but let’s go ahead and put it in the books as a possibility.

this is the only 10-point scoring system that I feel would have accurately scored, for example, the Diego/Karo fight. on my scorecard it would’ve gone: 10-9 Karo, 10-9 Karo, 10-7 Diego. final score 28-27 Diego. this is exactly how I feel that fight went. I feel, according to the current 10-point system, Diego should’ve lost even though he dominated the 3rd round and had all the momentum. (I also feel that by PRIDE’s old judging system, Diego clearly won).

I also believe all professional MMA judges should have to be at least a purple belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. reason being is that striking, in my opinion, can be scored rather intuitively; not so with grappling. do you think for a second Cecil Peoples knows how to pass guard? or how to transition from position to position, sub to sub? the question is rhetorical, the answer self-evident.

lastly, let me close by saying that, with all respect, only a very inexperienced fighter/grappler could say with a straight face that being in the guard is a neutral position—whether in MMA or even just jiu-jitsu. the fighter on top has the advantages of mobility; the ability to throw much harder shots as his movement is not inhibited by the floor; the ability to put pressure down onto his opponent and smash him, thus forcing his opponent to carry his body weight; the ability to stand; and he will have a MUCH easier time disengaging and escaping to his feet should he decide he no longer wants to be on the ground. the bottom fighter has none of these advantages. ask Denis Kang.

the current judging criteria are exactly correct. the judges themselves, and their directives for scoring the 10-point must system, are what need fixing.