Today on "MMA Nation" we'll be joined by "the veteran voice of the Octagon" Bruce Buffer. We'll talk to Buffer about his new Internet radio show on Sherdog.com, his alleged fight with Frank Trigg in an elevator, UFC 100 and more.

We'll also talk the Bobby Lashley vs. Bob Sapp "Ultimate Chaos" event, the new UFC magazine, a recap of last weekend's TUF 9 Finale, this terribly tragic news and more.

"MMA Nation" airs every Saturday 7:00pm EST to 9:00pm EST on 106.7 WJFK. To listen live over the Internet, go to WJFK's website and click "Listen Live".

I'm also now on Twitter: @mmanation.

"MMA Nation" is also available by podcast on iTunes.

Number to call: 800-636-1067

Email here.

Talk to you then.

Ultimate Chaos: Lashley vs. Sapp coverage

UFC 100 coverage

The Ultimate Fighter 9 Finale coverage

For those of us who picked Nate Diaz to beat Joe "Daddy" Stevenson at the TUF 9 Finale, it was pretty maddening to watch Joe Daddy turn most of the bout into a wrestling match. And if you've followed the brothers Diaz for any length of time you know that getting out-wrestled is how they lose fights.

Stevenson didn't just turn the majority of the match into a standard issue wrestling match, he put on a clinic.

Everyone watching the fight probably realized that something unusual was going on when they saw Nate Diaz in the awkward position on the right. My wife was laughing at how silly it looked. Those with some wrestling experience were spitting out their potato chips and screaming "spladle! spladle!"

Yes kids, that awkward position was no accident. Its a folkstyle wrestling move with a name: the spladle. It took Joe Daddy a long time -- well over a minute to get from the set up to the payoff of the move, but he did it and in so landed in a position where he had control and could do damage. Most importantly, the move took Nate Diaz completely out of his game. This is key for a fighter with a wrestling advantage going up a fighter with a guard as dangerous as Nate's.

The rest of the fight followed a similar pattern and I  sense the hand of Stevenson's new Yoda coach Greg Jackson in all this. Throughout the fight, Stevenson scored takedowns from the clinch by  executing beautiful rolls that went INTO Diaz' kimura attempts instead of trying to oppose Nate's weight and energy, he turned Diaz' own takedown defense against him.

As always, remember I have no training of any kind. I'm strictly going off of what I've picked up by watching fights, training videos and reading. Let's get nerdy with some animated gifs in the full entry.

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TM: You've seen a lot of good judging and a lot of bad judging over the years, and a lot of good refereeing and bad refereeing. What's your natural reaction when you see a judging or refereeing decision you disagree with? Is it pretty much what we get on the air, or do you try to temper it a little bit because you don't want to pile on?

Joe Rogan: The problem with the referees when we go to a place like Nashville is we have to use local referees and a lot of these guys just aren't prepared for the big show. They're not good enough, and they're nervous and some are real trigger happy. They want to step in and stop the action or tell the guys what to do. They make mistakes and don't know what to do. Then you get guys like Herb Dean, who's the best in the business and he knows what he's doing. As far as scoring, we have a 10-point must system that works for boxing when you have one attack, with hands. But when you have to evaluate punches vs. takedowns or knees vs. elbows you have to figure out some way to quantify attacking, effective aggressiveness, defense, how you score things. I think we need to come up with our own system. I think MMA needs something more. If we're going to use a 10-point must system, we need to be clear on what counts for what. It's frustrating when one guy is beating the other in the standup but the other guy takes him down and does nothing. The judges will sometimes give it to the guy who scored the takedown, but I think you've got to give it to the guy who's beating him up. And it's so subjective. You have two judges who see the same fight and have different reasons for scoring it different ways. If it's close like Caol Uno-Spencer Fisher, I don't say anything. I could see how someone would see Fisher won or Uno won. If something is ridiculous, I'll speak out on it. Especially when we had boxing judges. I remember Darby Shirley did some judging for UFC and his scores were (expletive) wacky. It has to be pretty bad. I think it all goes back to the scoring and we need to revamp that.

TM: What do you think about implementing some ideas from Pride, like scoring the fight in its entirety or rewarding effort to finish the fight?

JR: That's a real interesting question there. There's something to be said for that system. Do you remember the Brad Blackburn-Ryo Chonan fight?

TM: No, I'm blanking on the specifics of that one.

JR: OK, well Blackburn was winning the first two rounds. But Chonan hung in there and was kicking his (butt) in the third. Chonan lost the decision but won the fight. Blackburn won the decision but lost the fight. The last five minutes were Ryo Chonan beating the (expletive) out of Blackburn. Basically Blackburn survived. If you looked at the way the fight was going, you'd think Blackburn would get stopped if the fight continued. It's interesting. I kind of like the way Pride treats it as a whole and scores for the guy trying to finish the fight.

UFC announcer Joe Rogan talks to Todd Martin at CBS Sports.

Per MMAWeekly:

MAIN EVENT FIGHTERS

-Diego Sanchez $90,000 (includes $45,000 win bonus) def. Clay Guida $23,000 (win bonus would have been $23,000)
*Sanchez and Guida each earned an additional $25,000 for Fight of the Night

 

MAIN CARD FIGHTERS

-James Wilks $16,000 (includes $8,000 win bonus) def. DaMarques Johnson $8,000 (win bonus would have been $8,000)

-Chris Lytle $36,000 (includes $18,000 win bonus) def. Kevin Burns $9,000 (win bonus would have been $9,000)
*Lytle and Burns each earned an additional $25,000 for Fight of the Night

-Ross Pearson $16,000 (includes $8,000 win bonus) def. Andre Winner $8,000 (win bonus would have been $8,000)

-Joe Stevenson $70,000 (includes $35,000 win bonus) def. Nate Diaz $20,000 (win bonus would have been $20,000)
*Stevenson and Diaz each earned an additional $25,000 for Fight of the Night

 

PRELIMINARY CARD FIGHTERS

-Melvin Guillard $24,000 (includes $12,000 win bonus) def. Gleison Tibau $17,000 (win bonus would have been $17,000)

-Brad Blackburn $18,000 (includes $9,000 win bonus) def. Edgar Garcia $5,000 (win bonus would have been $5,000)

-Tomasz Drwal $15,600 (includes $7,000 win bonus) def. Mike Ciesnoleviscz $6,400 (win bonus would have been $8,000)
*Ciesnoleviscz had to give 20% of his show money or $1,600 to Drwal for failing to make weight, which is reflected in the amounts here.

-Nick Osipczak $16,000 (includes $8,000 win bonus) def. Frank Lester $8,000 (win bonus would have been $8,000)

-Jason Dent $16,000 (includes $8,000 win bonus) def. Cameron Dollar $8,000 (win bonus would have been $8,000)


ULTIMATE FIGHTER 9 FINALE DISCLOSED FIGHTER PAYROLL: $430,000
*Disclosed Payroll Does Not Include Bonuses

The Ultimate Fighter 9 Finale coverage

Michael David Smith thinks so:

Judging the whole fight objectively and determining who was better is not precisely what MMA judges do, but maybe it should be. If the 10-point must system can lead to Guida winning a fight in which Sanchez was clearly the better fighter, maybe it's time to scrap the 10-point must system.

...

Some people who want to change MMA judging think MMA should get rid of round-by-round scoring and simply judge the whole fight, as some Japanese MMA promotions do. Others think the round-by-round scoring is OK, but the 10-point must system should be replaced with another scoring method. Still others think the 10-point must system is OK but the problem is that judges score rounds 10-9 too often and should feel free less inhibited about scoring close rounds 10-10 and one-sided rounds 10-8, or even 10-7.

Personally, I'm sympathetic to the latter point of view. I'd like to see MMA move more toward the K-1 style of scoring, where judges use the 10-point must system but feel much more freedom to score rounds 10-10 or 10-8. In American MMA, almost every round is a 10-9 round. That's what leads to scores like 29-28 for Guida and 29-28 for Villasenor.

I've always felt the 10 point must system is an unnatural bolt-on for MMA added by boxing commissions who simply transferred a system they were familiar with rather than taking the time and effort to develop a judging system appropriate to the sport.

This weekend's fights clearly show the problematic nature of the 10 point must system for MMA.

MMA fighters work too hard to be subject to a judging system that is just flat out not right for the sport. The point of a fight is to determine who is the better fighter, not who can manipulate an artificial scoring regimen to eek out a technical win by the letter of the rules.

Any judging system will inherently be somewhat arbitrary. That's just human nature and fighters know that if they leave it up to the judges that they've put themselves at risk. But that doesn't mean an improved set of scoring criteria isn't needed.

NOTE: The Cecil Peoples image is just there because its the best MMA Judging graphic in existence. Mr. Peoples isn't relevant to this story.

TUF 9 Finale Results:

Our camp winner for picks out of the TUF 9 Finale is virginiatech with 74 points awarded through correct fight predictions. That is good for an impressive 15th overall out of 4290. Nicely done.

SmytheX turned $400 into $895, including money awarded through fight predictions, at the last event of MMA Playground's 5th season. The $400 bet on Ross Pearson was our camp's best bet under this season's limit of $1,000.

Season 1 Results:

Whitebread is our BE camp winner for picks over the entire season, finishing with 511 points awarded through correct predictions. For the UFC 93 and UFC 94 events, during which Bloody Elbow was not yet a contributing member at MMA Playground, the points have been subtracted. Littlenicky2355 is 2nd for the season, finishing with 496 points.

As it concerns the betting winner over the entire season, I finished with $8,077 and thetakeover finished with $6,214.

However, for our second event on MMA Playground, UFC 95, I bet $200 over this season's self-imposed $1,000 limit. If I were to subtract the $1,309 I won from that event, I would still have enough to be in first place. Thetakeover, for his part, has kept all of his event bets under $1,000. If people think I should be disqualified from medal contention for betting over limit on one event, I have no problem with that.

The good news out of all this is that our next season, starting in three weeks with UFC 100, will have no limits placed on betting and results will be readily apparent.

Next Season:

MMA for Real is switching their betting game over to MMA Playground. Kelvin Hunt was kind enough to accept the challenge which I issued and I have every intention of making the Bloody Elbow betting supremecy known to them throughout the season. If you are a current member of the BE betting ensemble and wish to change ranks, please do so now.

Prizes:

Yes, this season will be worth more than pride. The goal is to get as many autographs and as much signed apparel as possible out of my trip to UFC 100 and its expo. My resolve for this increases in direct proportion to the amount of people signed up for the betting game. Currently, we have 141 in our camp. This number needs to increase. Stipulations on prizes will most likely be forthcoming to prevent people from joining at the end of the season just to claim them. Prizes will, for sure, go to the most accurate predictor and the highest earner over the entire season. There is a possibility, depending on quantity, that lesser items could go to the mid-season leaders in both categories and as well as whole season medaling finishers.

Important: If you wish to join the Bloody Elbow betting ensemble, send me a message or leave a comment in this thread so I can send you an invite. Please make sure your MMA Playground login name is the same as your BE name or as close as possible so we can give you the proper credit.

The season results in our division (60+ members):

Congratulations to everyone who took part. Full wager and pick results for the TUF 9 Finale are in the extended entry.

The Ultimate Fighter 9 Finale coverage

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You might have something wrong with you if you're not constantly refreshing FightMetric's website after close and controversial decisions on UFC cards.  Rami weighs in on the Sanchez/Guida fight here:

What Good is Top Position...

...when you're getting beaten by the guy on the bottom? Round two of last night's fight between Diego Sanchez and Clay Guida was an object lesson in why top position is not always better. While Guida did maintain top control, he got outstruck 16-3 in power shots to the head, thanks to a bevy of elbows coming from Sanchez on the bottom. Joe Rogan made the comment that those might have been the most effective elbows from bottom that we'd ever seen, but we've seen those elbows used to pretty good effect before. Anderson Silva vs. Travis Lutter and Kenny Florian vs. Joe Lauzon are some other good examples of the devastating effect of this under-utilized weapon. They very well might be the most effective strike that most fighters will never use.

...

The scores from the fight show a victory for Sanchez 30-26, though that could very easily be 29-27, as Glenn Trowbridge scored it. Round 1 was a 10-8 round, using our objective criteria (score over 100 and more than 6x opponents' score) and Round 2 goes to Sanchez thanks to his offensive guard. Round 3 is basically a toss-up, which the system gives to Sanchez on damage, but could easily go Guida's way instead.

I gave Guida round two live based on top control and begrudgingly gave him a close round three.  After hearing Jordan Breen explain his thought process and reading Bloody Elbow's own Luke Thomas scribe out his thoughts (in addition to the stances of many of our commenters), I warmed up to the idea of 30-26 or 29-27 Sanchez, though I felt he deserved the fight based on his performance in round one anyway. 

Hopefully, this fight is part of a growing trend of judges getting over the fallacy that simply being on top or taking someone down is tantamount to winning or controlling a fight.  Taking someone down is just that and nothing more.  Putting yourself into dominating positions should weigh on a judge's mind.  If you can't improve your position, you better be able to land significant strikes from inside your opponent's guard.

Take nothing away from Clay Guida, who showed a ton of heart last night.  Unfortunately, holding a guy down without doing much damage for eight minutes of a fight shouldn't overshadow an absolute mugging in round one.  Kudos to the judges (the two of 'em anyway) that got this one right.

*UPDATE* Rami e-mailed me and wanted this to get seen:

Saw the post on BE and wanted to see if you'd make a point in the post for me. I'm uncomfortable being called a judge and it's not quite fair to call the scores the FightMetric system puts out a "judgment." We're not claiming to call accurate winners or losers because the system doesn't adhere to the Unified Rules. The scores that come out are ones that measure effectiveness. That means that we're only basing things on what landed. We can't see things like aggression or "Octagon Control" explicitly in the numbers (though they do show up to some degree), so the scores we use to call rounds are not exactly what the judges use to call their rounds. There are definitely examples where we'd be right to call a winner based on our criteria and the judges would be 100% correct to call a winner based on their criteria. The FightMetric effectiveness score is a powerful statistic, rooted in demonstrated MMA effectiveness over 14,000 fights, but it's no replacement for expert human judges.

I mentioned it in the comments, but Rami's not an actual judge.  Just a bit of fun with the headline.

"I have got tremendous respect for Clay after tonight because I haven’t been in a blood barn burner like that since Nick Diaz. I hit Guida with some knees, some kicks and some uppercuts that were right on the button and Guida just kept on coming."

"I was surprised, Guida has got heart. He’s got a couple of hearts because he kept coming in the striking too even though I was landing the more effective strikes and picking my shots."

"Guida is a little Tasmanian Devil. He was in a position to fight me for a reason. Guida earned his shot with wins against Danzig and Diaz. Guida put himself in that place but I was just the more technical fighter that executed the gameplan right. I went in there and was 'The Nightmare'."

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There appear to be disputes about how the main event was scored and with good reason. Even the first round where Sanchez is the clear winner poses problems for scoring. Let's walk through each round and underscore why there is debate and why this fight is difficult to score.

For help and some different perspective, let's use the Sherdog.com staff (all very competent individuals) round-up and scoring. Round 1:

Jordan Breen scores the round: 10-8 Sanchez
TJ De Santis scores the round: 10-9 Sanchez
Loretta Hunt scores the round 10-9 Sanchez

Clearly there is no other way but to give Sanchez the round. That much is certain. The question then becomes, when to score a round a 10-8 versus a 10-9. Referee John McCarthy argues a 10-8 round should either be when the beating is so severe and the fight was so close to being stopped from damage that we must award a two point differential or when there are two Ds: damage and dominance. In other words, if you offensively damage your opponent badly and also positionally control him for the course of the round, that's a 10-8 round. The problem? In MMA, there are no defined criteria for what constitutes a 10-8 round. Judges are left to borrow analogous situations and principles from boxing or invent their own. Clearly Guida was hurt badly enough to bring the issue up of scoring the first round 10-8, but without some guidance on what makes a 10-8 a 10-8 in MMA, it's not a given the round was or wasn't a two point advantage for Sanchez.

The second round is where things start to get hairy. Here's how the Sherdog.com staff scored it:

Jordan Breen scores the round: 10-9 Sanchez
TJ De Santis scores the round: 10-9 Sanchez
Loretta Hunt scores the round 10-9 Guida

Right away it's obvious this was a close round, but who is the rightful winner? I personally scored the round for Sanchez, so let me explain my view point. Yes, Guida got the takedown and was able to keep Sanchez on his back for a large majority of the round. However, there are two problems for Guida. First, he didn't pass guard. He doesn't have to pass guard or even attempt as long as he's doing damage, but the amount of damage inflicted in this round was largely delivered by Sanchez off of his back. Guida landed a couple of elbows and some hammerfists, but that was it. The hellacious elbows from Sanchez were for more effective damage. Let's add to that how well Sanchez controlled the posture of Guida as well as the admittedly stuffed kimura and armbar attempts. And one more critical feature: Guida gets the points for the takedown, but once in guard the full guard position is regarded as a 50-50 predicament. The fighter on top can throw more strikes and has a few submission attempts, but the fighter on bottom has more submission opportunities with a little striking thrown in. If we regard that position as 50-50, the question then becomes who did more damage and who controlled the positioning? It's close when trying to decipher who did the controlling of positioning, but the damage was done by Sanchez. It's admittedly a very close round, but Guida being in top position means very little without doing damage.

In addition to a close second round, the third was also tough to decipher. Once again, here's how the Sherdog.com staff scored the round along with the official ringside judges' tallies:

Jordan Breen scores the round: 10-10 (30-27 Sanchez)
TJ De Santis scores the round: 10-9 Guida (29-28 Sanchez)
Loretta Hunt scores the round 10-10 (29-29 Draw)

Judge Patricia Morse Jarman turns in a 29-28 scorecard for Guida. However, judge Glenn Trowbridge scores the bout 29-27, and Nelson Hamilton scores the bout 29-28 for the winner by split decision, Diego Sanchez.

Reasonable people can disagree, but I have no earthly idea how one scores this fight for Guida. Be that as it may, I saw this round for Sanchez as he did damage standing, stuffed takedown attempts and was much closer (albeit still not that close) with the kimura and armbar attempt. Guida also landed some shots standing and rode on top for a decent portion of the round after claiming top control from Sanchez's modified back-take. Sanchez did briefly have Guida's back and at least attempted a modified RNC for a short time before conceding position, but I admit it wasn't close. So, again, from full guard we are in a 50-50 scenario. Who did more damage, positionally controlled and came closer to stopping the fight? I'll give Guida some points for keeping Sanchez flat on his back, but unlike the Danzig fight where Danzig was trying to get back to his feet and therefore allowing Guida to be the wrestling aggressor and back tacker, Sanchez was willing to fight from the bottom. And from bottom he did an excellent job of nullifying the offense Guida possessed. Guida was never really able to stand and rain punches. He was forced to use hammerfists and a handful of short elbows while fighting off submission attempts/posture control.

As a recap, I do concede one can make a case for Guida taking the second round although that's not personally how I would score it. But to suggest that over the course of the fight Clay Guida was robbed is not supported by the evidence even if we don't give Sanchez a 10-8 round. However, it is also clear that scoring this fight is actually quite difficult and there are myriad ways to parse what happened. It's also a reminder that there needs to be some sort of guidelines or criteria for what does and does not constitute a 10-8 round. The sport and its fighters deserve no less.

The Ultimate Fighter 9 Finale coverage