Marcus Davis lost that fight under UFC, Pride, or really any judging criteria that could be put in place. He needs to accept this.

A lot of people want to weight specific moves in the judging criteria. I think this is a horrible idea. This would creat point fighting and ruin the sport.

They need more competent judges. That’s about it.

If fighters don’t like the decisions the judges come up with, they have a much better option: finish the fight.

I agree totally with that but I still think its reasonable to ask for some clarification of how points are awarded. After all, you dont want to be totally focused on finishing the fight whilst your opponent is focused on steadily racking up points and at the end of the fight you lose a decision. Nate Diaz v Guida and Serra v Hughes were fights I thought the losing fighter had clearly more desire and effort to end the fight than the winner. Perhaps Davis should just be asking that they weigh the attempts to finish the fights far more heavily. That way, how points are scored isnt really important. If you are attempting to finish the fight, you’ll be rewarded.

I don’t personally see what is so disagreeable about Davis’s comments. Yes, he is obviously referring to his fight against Hardy, but that doesn’t mean that his comments don’t make sense. There are times when it seems that the judges look at the ends of a round instead of the full round. Also, his questions concerning takedowns have been a topic of discussion for a long time.

thinks Cecil could actually sit still and watch every minute of the 1st round? By the middle of round 2 Cecil is getting Nachos and a drink at the concession stand.

Maybe the UFC should set up a super-fight between Marcus and BJ to see who is the undisputed whinge-weight champion of the world.

How about more points per round?
Or more specifically, a 10 point must system per facet of a round.

10 point must for:
Striking
Grappling
Submissions
Takedowns
etc..

So that fighters could score better or worse than their opponent on each of those with a total being achieved for each round and the fighter overall.

For example, in the Sanchez v Guida fight, round one might look like:

Striking: 10 – 7 Sanchez
Takedowns: 10 – 9 Guida
Grappling: 10 – 9 Guida
Submissions: 10 – 10 (I don’t remember any submissions in that round)
Octagon Control: 10 – 9 Sanchez

Total for round 1: 48 – 46 for Sanchez

Just and idea and an example.

Cumulative scoring of points off of jabs and whatnot does not work in MMA. Sure Marcus Davis hit Dan Hardy a lot of time. BUT Dan Hardy beat the shit out of Marcus Davis. Saying that Marcus Davis wins a fight because he connected more times is ridiculous. Especially when he came out of that fight looking like te victim of a hate crime. I want to see fighters trying to finish. I don’t want to see MMA become the snooze-fest that boxing has become

I dont think we need to completely change the system, but certain things need to be clearified in writing for the judges, such as… what constitutes (and more use of) 10-10 and 10-8 rounds (and maybe also the use of a tie breaker round), how much should a take down count for (especially if you dont do anything with it), how much should a failed submission attempt count for if anything, is the emphasis on landing more shots or doing more damage, etc. Once these things were defined, there could be a clear arguement for why a certain fighter won or lost, unlike now where it can be very subjective.

The least subjective way to do it, not that I am necessarily saying this is how it should be done (because there are some flaws in it), would be to just count amount of landed strikes and kicks per round and give a 10-9 round to the fighter with more (no 10-8 rounds because this can be subjective and they are hardly ever used anyway). Since we cant really tell how damaging a strike is, they all count the same (for example, some look worse than they really are, some fighters are more prone to cuts, etc.). The advantage to doing more damage would be a better chance to finish the fight. Take downs count for nothing unless you do damage from the top (damage from the bottom would count just the same). If you take a fighter down, and he beats you up from the bottom, was there really any advantage in taking him down? Submission attempts count for nothing unless finished (after all, the other fighter managed to get out of them).