MMA Rules and Judging

[Jasen777]

So in this week's TUF fight Dana was basically advocating a standup when a fighter had mount, saying if you aren't advancing or doing damage (or maybe he said trying to finish the fight I don't remember exactly) you get stood up. Now it's true he wasn't striking, or going for a submission at that exact time, I mean sometimes you have to defend your dominant position and completely secure it before you do something else. He did finally secure a choke as the round ended (too late for the finish). He also ended the first round in mount but had to break.

Fight could have easily finished sooner and with a submission if there wasn't a round break. Though I do see the point in general that no round breaks and no standups could lead to more ground fighting that many people don't like.

Me, I'm something of a purist. If two guys just randomly bump into each other on an expensive caged fighting surface, wearing just shorts and MMA gloves, and start a real fight, there's no ref to impose standups and round breaks.

[REDDzone]

The unfortunate truth is...Dana knows his audience, and that's why he says stuff like that. "This isn't what UFC is all about...huggin and sh*t!" (shoutout Badr Hari!).

[CPT]

Just want to document one of the worst decisions in recent memory. Diego Sanchez over Ross Pearson, featuring the worst single scorecard I've ever seen, in 30-27 Diego. Usually "bad" decisions (OMG ROBBERY) are in close, high profile fights, where one round could swing the fight. This wasn't one of those. It bummed me out and made me not want to watch the main event (maybe because I was expecting another split decision in favour of Bendo). That can't be good for the sport. What can be done about this?

What are some worse decisions/scorecards? As mentioned in the event thread, Diego and Leonard Garcia have been involved in a lot of them.

Also, from here on out, I'm going to try to post the awful decisions in here, so we have some kind of record, lol. Maybe Cammo can make a "Worst Decision of the Year" award at the end of the year.

[Bernman]

Put the judges in booths backstage and have them watch on muted monitors. Then they wouldn't get influenced by the hometown crowd, Rogan, and Greg Jackson. Jackson was in Diego's corner and if you watched FightMaster you saw how much of a shameless manipulator of judges Greg is.

To facilitate that change there may also need to be a coinciding one of appointing judges who actually have a passion for MMA as opposed to cronies who are only watching because of the paycheck and would only tune out during fights even more if they weren't in the raucous crowd environment. If Zuffa was really annoyed about the absurdity of some of these decisions they would use their influence to get new commissioners installed in the major MMA states. But in reality they probably like most of the decisions like Diego got last night because it encourages the rock em sock em robots style, to wit they may be an indirect cause because the officials think they are appeasing the biggest moneymaker in the biz by far with these calls.

[Jasen777]

Jackson was in Diego's corner and if you watched FightMaster you saw how much of a shameless manipulator of judges Greg is.

Absolutely shameless, but I wouldn't have thought it would have worked at big events. But then he cornered Garcia too right?

[Bernman]

Absolutely shameless, but I wouldn't have thought it would have worked at big events. But then he cornered Garcia too right?

Yeah, and Guida.

In order to enable the untalented sect of fighters he has to still receive wins and in turn bonuses, he comes up with a total gameplan to manipulate judges. It isn't just limited to actions inside the cage.

The match on Fight Master which stood out as the most nauseating, was the one where Bryan Travers, a prototype Jackson grinder, was fighting Chris Lozano. I'm not the biggest Lozano guy, but he's vastly superior to Travers, and was doing considerably more damage in the fight. Yet Jackson somehow almost allowed him to pull out a win because he'd say it missed or was nothing every time Lozano would hit him, but a love tap or even whiff by Travers and he'd yell out "beautiful", "that hurt him", "I can't believe you're winning this, Bryan", and crap like that. It was disgusting, and shed light on one reason Garcia, Diego, Guida, etc. get the decisions they do.

[Jasen777]

Maybe he is a **** sport killer.

[REDDzone]

Rogan was talking about judges on one of his recent podcasts, must have been the Dillashaw one because I think that's the only one I've listened to. He said he knows one of the judges and he knows he trains, etc. He said that judge was telling him a story about another judge who doesn't train and has no idea about any of it, I guess at one point the clueless judge turned to the other judge and asked "what is he doing right now?" when a fighter was applying some basic submission hold.

[Jasen777]

I was wondering if anyone knew if there's anything in the unified rules that says when a fight should be stood up, or when they should break other positions up (wall and stall for example). I looked a little but couldn't find much.

[REDDzone]

I was wondering if anyone knew if there's anything in the unified rules that says when a fight should be stood up, or when they should break other positions up (wall and stall for example). I looked a little but couldn't find much.

Do the refs even know? For example, we talked recently how closed guard is essentially an illegal position these days. Some refs yell "improve your position!!!" and some refs yell "you gotta work!!".

Two very different phrases with very different meanings for groundfighters both on top and bottom.

[NZB2323]

How much the crowd boos influences the ref.

[Cammo101]

How much the crowd boos influences the ref.

Depends on how seasoned the ref is. Newer, unknown refs tend to react to crowd noise.