We've had several threads before on the need for better judging in MMA, but something I rarely ever see from the MMA community is the desire for more decisions to go to draws.

Why is that? Most of the polls for how the fans judged really close fights like Shogun-Henderson and Condit-Diaz showed a huge variety in opinions, but the Draw option was usually stuck at a measly 3 or so percent.

I noticed that a common attitude among the fanbase is "It could've gone either way." Well, goddammit then, take the average of that "either way" and call it a draw! It's clear that there are instances where judging a fight is incredibly hard to do. Say that Fighter A landed 100 weak punches on Fighter B, but Fighter B punched A with 20 really freaking hard punches; who won that fight? Should it be quality of damage that matters, or the quantity? Almost every thread on that sort of fight ends up in a debate about how the judging rubric should be designed with no real conclusion, but why is it so unacceptable to just admit that because it's so unclear on who won the fight, no one should be declared the winner?

Deciding the win for such a close fight based on nothing more than a coin toss is insanely unfair for the loser. So his opponent gets to have a fat winner's bonus on his paycheck and goes up the ladder towards a title shot, while he himself is sent down the ladder and takes a cut in his pay, even though everyone admitted, "Yeah, it's arguable you won the fight in reality, but I just went with the other guy anyway, because someone obviously has to win. Life sucks that way." (Shogun, I'm looking at you, bro. You vs. Henderson should've been a draw.)

Then take the fights where people didn't argue, "I have no clue who won the fight", but "HE won the fight" "NO, HE DID." I thought Diaz-Condit was a clear win for Condit, and that anyone who argued Diaz won was a moron. But the fact that there was such a huge controversy over who actually won made me ok with just calling the damn thing a draw to set up an immediate rematch. Yeah, I thought it was incredibly stupid anyone scored round 5 for Diaz because of a submission attempt that was nowhere near actually being finished, but hey, if something like 45% of the MMA fanbase thought Diaz won, then Condit should rematch with Diaz to prove who the true (interim) WW champ is. Yeah, I would've still maintained that Condit clearly won, but I don't mind compromising for a draw if that meant future controversial fights are also given draws.

tl;dr: Close or controversial fights should be declared draws way more often because:

1. For close fights, it's unfair to arbitrarily give a winner's bonus and a W to a guy who didn't actually win, just for the sake of having a winner and a loser, and

2. For controversial fights, draws are a fair compromise between Pro-Skub and Anti-Skub forces that'll then set up an immediate rematch to (hopefully) decide the true, undisputed winner.