After the highly debated scorecards from the UFC 195 main event between Robbie Lawler and Carlos Condit, Joe Rogan took to twitter to call for changes. According to the UFC commentator, the 10-point must system, which was originally adopted from boxing, must be dropped:
Rogan went on to reply to a query about using a half-point system, saying that "it's definitely better than what they're using now."
While I do believe there's a lot of improvements that can and should be made, this is where I specifically disagree. To start, why use half points instead of whole numbers that go down the line? We've already seen silly addition errors on the current system, and there's no point complicating things.
I've also written about this in the past, and to me, the bigger issue isn't the 10-point must system per se. The main problem I see is that most judges treat this like the 10-9 must system, as they're so hesitant to use any of the other scores available to them. Whether it's being fearful of a draw or not, for some reason, many of them don't use anything apart from that 10-9 regardless of what happens in the cage.
If 10-8's are already so rare nowadays, will it have to be a near death in the cage before they use a 10-7 or even a 10-6? What about 10-10's?
Major changes also need to have the athletic commissions all agree to regulate, making overhauls a bit more complicated. Rogan did have another specific suggestion that could really help though, and it would probably be simple enough to implement:
In baseball, they have two more umpires in playoff games, than in the regular season. They already rotate several judges on a course of an MMA event, so I don't see a reason why we can't just start adding two more to every 5-round fight.