Dana White: Not a fan of a proposed half point scoring system
Posted on March 8, 2012, 08:08 PM by Trent Reinsmith
One thing that almost everyone in MMA can agree on is the fact that the refereeing and judging leaves a lot to be desired. The ten point must system that was adopted from the world of boxing just doesn't seem to cut it in the world of MMA, but the solution to that problem doesn't seem to be an easy one. One of the ideas that has been floated is a point system based on half point increments and not full points.
When the system was mentioned to UFC president Dana White he didn't seem to be too interested in adopting it, "We get into half-points? They better learn to count f---ing whole points before we get to half-points. You put a half-a-point in there, holy s---, every f---ing card will be destroyed. It’s a bigger problem than half-points. And I don’t want to smash these guys, they accepted what they did and they were stand-up about it, but Jesus Christ, there’s three f---ing numbers. There’s 10s and 9s. If you can’t count 10s and 9s, let’s not throw f---ing fractions in there." - for more see MMAFighting
What do you think LowKick'ers, how can the scoring be fixed?
Further Reading: UFC on FX 2 Recap: Scoring issues mar Flyweight Tournament
Comments
haha for real it should be each round is score 1-5 if you get a five and other guy 4 you win the round you only get 5 5 its its to close so draw..
I know this is just debating semantics but how ridiculous is that they want to use "half points?" We have a 10-point scale in which at most 2 of those points are ever used. Instead of awarding half points and making that even more useless why not just make a 10-8 round a 10-6 and a 10-8.5 a 10-7 round etc...
This problem is very easy to resolve!
what we need is a new round system
instead of the 3 - 5min rounds change it to a
5- 3min rounds!
That way close rounds that we have now that judges and fans have trouble giving it to a certain fighter would be easier
a clear example is when a round is slow and fighters just exchange strikes and 1 fighter land a lil bit more but then the other fighter gets a takedown in the last 2 mins and hold it there or at least most of the 2mins
In a 3min round fighters will push the pace and won't be afraid to strike and fear a takedown and get hold down for the rest of the 5 mins, also more fighters will go for submissions if they miss they won't get stuck much time on the ground to say the other fighter had Control instead of counting the attack of the submission try.
Fighter will get more rest because every 3 mins they get a break of 1 , so fighters won't gas as much , we still get 15min of fighting if it goes to decision and now fighters can get 3 out of 5 rounds to get a clear win in case of Decisions . your welcome Dana.
i guess you have never seen Amatuer MMA, the 3 minute rounds suck.
Perhaps the 10 point must system could be changed slightly. In the "No 9" system the winner of a round gets 10 points and the loser gets 8 points or less (no 9 in this system). In five round fights there is lots of time to make that up but it would create more of a sense of urgency to try and clearly WIN the round or finish the fight.
LOL the great thing about Dana is that he says what EVERYONE is thinking, including the curse words.
But in all seriousness,
They need to judge on damage. Problem solved.
It's a fight, not a basketball game
It means if I wanted to watch someone score points, I'd watch a sport where the objective is to score points.
I watch fights to see people fight, not to see two guys dry hump each other for points...
...I watch gay porn for that :D
Judging on damage is the worst possible solution. Many fighters cut and/or bruise easier than others. Sometimes it's naturally and sometimes it's a build up of scar tissue.
It's one thing to use damage as part of evaluating effective striking, but damage in itself can sometimes say very little about who the more effective fighter was.
Not exactly. Where Dana said ****, I would have said #$*%
heh imagine how many fighters would go under the knife like diaz did so they wouldn't get cuts and lose
They just need new ****ing judges........PERIOD
I think you are on to the real problem. WhoTF are these judges? Are they MMA legends? No, Are they ex MMA fighters? NO. get them the hell out and put some real ex fighters in there.
The problem is the CASC and their crap judges!
There would be so much bias in former fighters. What style you are from, what training camp you are from, you trained with a guy who beat my sone Ryan or my ex-wife...etc.
I vote no on couture haha
The problem is that there isn't enough of a scoring latitude to reflect how much damage is done. I've never heard of a 10-7 round being given, so the "10 point must" system is really a 2 point must system.
And even 10-8 rounds are very rare and so are 10-10. So if fighter A dominates fighter B in the 1st, and then barely loses the 2nd, chances are they will be even on the scorecard, even though fighter A did much more damage over the 2 rounds.
I'd do 3 things. First, make it a 3 point must system, where the winner of each round gets 3 points and the loser gets between 0 and 2.
And I'd post the scores after each round. That way, even if a fighter doesn't agree with the judging, at least he knows what they have to do to win.
And finally, I'd never let Cecil "I don't score leg kicks" Peoples ever judge a MMA fight ever again.
I agree there needs to be more 10-8 and 10-7 rounds for domination. Too often these rounds are scored 10-9 or 10-8. Pretty ridiculous that thats true.
Get cecil and all the others out...i hate them all. I hate decisions....and its only because the f-in judges
A 10-8 round should be rare, as it is now... And a 10-7 round shouldn't even exist (and basically doesn't) in MMA. These are three-round fights, not 12 like in boxing. If you give one fighter a 3-point lead after the opening-round, his opponent could win the next two and still lose the fight. Not at all helpful.
Frankie v. Maynard was a 10-8 rd...very well justified. If it were a 3rd fight like most...it only makes sense to have to win 2 rds to tie...its a skilled fight. If a 10-7 ever happened, u better show u deserve to be there and finish that guy. Nobody likes a robbery...nobody likes a boring decision. This would make all fighters work harder and not simply lay and pray for wins.
Hey Joey! Seems we went around on this one before, but I have been working on my argument. The problem is that 10-7 rounds don't exist.
Lets say fighter A gets a 3-0 lead from a real beat down in the first round, and then fighter B wins the next two rounds, but only by one point, 2-3.
Fighter A would win 7-6 and deserves it. Losing two close rounds but then totally destroying a guy for one round should be enough to win a fight.
Also, there is nothing to stop fighter B from trying to get a 3-0 score in the next two rounds, especially if the scores are posted.
You could argue that guys would coast after a 3-0 round, but they do that anyway if they think they are ahead.
I agree with ex mma fighters being judges. Not just necessarily any mma fighter, but bas is intelligent....mir...intelligent...florian even fairly intelligent. They need people who have actually been kicked, punched, swept, taken down, dominated, and been dominated to fully appreciate a valid "point system" everyone CAN agree on. In boxing, a knock down matters the same to every judge...mma needs a consenus. U have fighters laying and praying and weak takedowns where fighters get right up being scored. Get experienced people...or at least teach them 1 way or another how shit should really be scored.
There's absolutely no reason not to use the half point system. Judges not being to do math is the problem, People make mistakes- it happens. What happened with mighty mouse and mcall isn't really applicable to the half point system. The problem is that there's no difference who squeaks out a round vs a guy who dominates a round. Case in point, machida vs rampage. I think rampage won that fight from a technical point of view, but in all honesty machida actually won the fight. Rampage barely squeaked out two rounds giving him two 10-9 rounds when he did not do any damage or anything impressive. Then third round machida comes out and ****ing dominates. Even though he dominates and does damage it isn't worthy of of a 10-8, so rampage wins 29-28. Ultimately this letting fighters squeak out boring decisions. With the half point system we could've gone to a draw and had a sudden death round (also a rule that should be applied)
Thanks, I got my rooster at ChicK'R'Us
LMAO!!!
If there's going to a be a point system, they should make each gradual round worth more. That will keep fighters wanting to keep pushing forward in fights and will also cause more seperation in total points added in the end. If there is still a draw, make a sudden death round
Not sure what the big mystery is about scoring, Pride had it down perfectly. You score the entire fight as a whole and only score based on damage and how close you were to finishing the fight.
As for rounds i think the biggest problem is that we have rounds at all, what exactly is the point of rounds? MMA is suppose to be a more raw and real form of combat just with civilized rules but last time I checked there aren't a lot of real fights where people take breaks every 5 min.
So personally I'd like to see just a 15min fight where the person whole does the most damage or is the closest to finishing the fight wins. No more of this saved by the bell bullshit, if you are saved by the fight time running out you lost pure and simple.
I think the biggest problem with MMA scoring is that we are trying to make a fight to much into a sport and what Rogan said on that news show about MMA being the sport of fighting needs to be remembered.
They can't even get the full point system right, so who the hell thinks half points will be any better?
Take rounds out, and fighters fight until one wins, otherwise, we are always going to have bad judging in someone's eyes.
Proposed fixes:
1. I agree that the Pride system actually worked pretty well and made a bit more sense. Rampage thought he lost against Machida because he barely edged out two rounds and then got his clock cleaned in the third. He survived and did well enough to keep it a 10-9 round, but was still surprised that he won, since that was the only significant event the whole fight. I think there's a certain amount of logic to that train of thinking.
2. Have statistics such as amount of time on top, number of strikes landed (and what type) tallied as the fight goes on, much as in boxing, and made available to the judges at the end of the round to more accurately score rounds.
3. BJ Penn's solution: eliminate the judges entirely. Score every fight in which there is no finish as a draw.
your third option would create alot of problems, look how much crying there is for Edgar and his rematches, and you want to make every fight that is not finished a draw? lol
I say in that in the event of a draw, sudden death round via hotdog eating competition.