How to fix UFC judging, a simple plan.
In most of my blogs, before I go into my opinion, I usually set it up with an introduction that presents the facts and background of the topic that I a going to talk about. However, I think I can safely say that for this topic, there is no introduction needed. Any MMA fan worth his or her weight in salt knows without question that the UFC judging of matches over the past few years has been absolutely terrible. The Shogun/Machida match is by no means the first time we have seen a bad decision made by judges, but I do think it is the most significant. Most commonly we see bad decisions in smaller matches but it is pretty rare when we see bad decisions in championship matches, and since championship matches are so huge in the minds of MMA fans a bad decision in one of those is going to cause a lot more buzz. So since it has already been established that the judging is bad I am not going to waste time in this article explaining why it does. Instead, let’s talk about what we can do to fix it.
The first idea that comes to mind I am stealing from policy debate judging. When we give our decision as to which team won the round we also disclose the reasons for our decisions. The reason why we do this is so that the debaters have a chance to inquire about the thought process of the judges so that they can understand what might be weak points in their cases. In short, it allows them to ask questions. In MMA there are no questions. The decision is given and that’s it. I was able to see the decisions of the judges in a nut shell, but there was not a full disclosure of the cards nor were there questions asked of the judges. Therefore, I would like to suggest a rule that judges be forced to disclose the reasons for their decisions in a press conference after a match. Now this would be quite time consuming to do it for every decision at an event, therefore I would suggest that they be forced to disclose to the public the reasons for their decisions just for championship matches at first.
What would this do? Simple, it would allow us to get into the thought process of the judges. This is good for two main reasons. The first is that fighters can than tailor their strategies to the judges that are scoring the match. Shogun himself said he didn’t push the final round because his corner told him he had won all 4 rounds. How would they know this? They may have studied the judges earlier decisions but even then that is not enough. By being able to ask the judges direct questions, fighters and their corners can then develop a better strategy as to how they want to finish matches. This will lead to stronger finishes and less chance of the fight going to the score cards. The second is that it gives the public closure. If the judges give their reasons, we may disagree with the reasons, but at least we have an explanation. In my opinion what fumes people about these bad decisions is not so much that they happened, but that they don’t understand WHY they happened. If the judges disclose then the chance for understanding the decision is there. Ultimately there will be those who still disagree with the thought process, but at least they understand why the decisions were made and that in itself is better than nothing.
In short it’s all about accountability. If we hold the judges to their decisions and force them to explain themselves, then they will have to really take their job seriously. If they have to take their job seriously, then we may see better decisions being made. However, I will agree with Dana White, never rely on the judges. Don’t ever let it go to a decision. There is no excuse to let someone else lose the match for you.
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