Hughes or Penn?

Training
81

[quote]jtrinsey wrote:

[quote]cycobushmaster wrote:
how 'bout different criteria? seperate it into striking, clinch/takedown, ground submission/GnP, aggression, and overall control/dominance…

1 point each for slightly winning each category, 2 points for dominating each category…

theoritically the most aggressive and dominant fighter would win.

get rid of the “must” system completely…
[/quote]

Fighter A spends the first minute of the round picking apart Fighter B on the feet. Not landing anything too crazy, but avoiding damage, landing some good jabs, etc. Most of minute two and three, he works Fighter B up against the cage and lands some short shots and knees to the legs, followed by a pair of takedowns that he’s unable to do much with. Nothing crazy, but controlling the fight and dictating the pace. Minute four is some more standing, with Fighter A enjoying a slight advantage on the feet. Right at about 1 minute left in the round, Fighter A takes Fighter B down again, but Fighter B executes a brilliant kimura sweep and gains mount. He unleashes a flurry of devastating ground and pound, which leads to Fighter A turtling and B taking the back, then goes back to mount, which leads to some more GnP as the round ends.

In that scoring system, Fighter A would win striking, clinch/takedowns, and aggression, and thus the round. Yet, Figher B clearly should win that round.

Stuff like that happens all the time, and any time you have different categories that somebody needs to win, you are rewarding the guy who used the most varied gameplan, not the guy who did the most damage and controlled the fight.

The way fights are currently scored is just fine. The actual implementation of the scoring system is the problem.[/quote]

in that scenario, the most dominant fighter would win (B would have 4-5 points, whereas A would have 3-4 points)…hence different points for level of dominance. anyway, somebody that controls the round for 4 minutes and doens’t get finished prolly wins the round. a last minute flurry doens’t eliminate all the previous activity…

whatever, i’m just throwing ideas out there…

82

[quote]jtrinsey wrote:

[quote]cycobushmaster wrote:
how 'bout different criteria? seperate it into striking, clinch/takedown, ground submission/GnP, aggression, and overall control/dominance…

1 point each for slightly winning each category, 2 points for dominating each category…

theoritically the most aggressive and dominant fighter would win.

get rid of the “must” system completely…
[/quote]

Fighter A spends the first minute of the round picking apart Fighter B on the feet. Not landing anything too crazy, but avoiding damage, landing some good jabs, etc. Most of minute two and three, he works Fighter B up against the cage and lands some short shots and knees to the legs, followed by a pair of takedowns that he’s unable to do much with. Nothing crazy, but controlling the fight and dictating the pace. Minute four is some more standing, with Fighter A enjoying a slight advantage on the feet. Right at about 1 minute left in the round, Fighter A takes Fighter B down again, but Fighter B executes a brilliant kimura sweep and gains mount. He unleashes a flurry of devastating ground and pound, which leads to Fighter A turtling and B taking the back, then goes back to mount, which leads to some more GnP as the round ends.

In that scoring system, Fighter A would win striking, clinch/takedowns, and aggression, and thus the round. Yet, Figher B clearly should win that round.

Stuff like that happens all the time, and any time you have different categories that somebody needs to win, you are rewarding the guy who used the most varied gameplan, not the guy who did the most damage and controlled the fight.

The way fights are currently scored is just fine. The actual implementation of the scoring system is the problem.[/quote]

2 more points: i mis-spoke…i should have said most dominant fighter.

and the most varied attack should win…it is MMA.

83

[quote]cycobushmaster wrote:
in that scenario, the most dominant fighter would win (B would have 4-5 points, whereas A would have 3-4 points)…hence different points for level of dominance. anyway, somebody that controls the round for 4 minutes and doens’t get finished prolly wins the round. a last minute flurry doens’t eliminate all the previous activity…
[/quote]

At the risk of starting an argument over fake scoring systems… wouldn’t A “slightly” win (and thus gain 1 point each) striking, clinch/takedowns, and aggression and thus, score 3 points? And B would “dominantly win” submissions/GnP and score 2 points?

I mean, it’s kind of dumb to argue over a hypothetical, but I just don’t see how categorizing scoring is any improvement over a round scoring system. Whoever wins the round gets 10 points, the other guy gets 9. Way simpler than trying to have judges simultaneously evaluate and score multiple categories.

I still have yet to actually see a good example of a time when the 10-point must system failed?

84

[quote]jtrinsey wrote:

[quote]cycobushmaster wrote:
in that scenario, the most dominant fighter would win (B would have 4-5 points, whereas A would have 3-4 points)…hence different points for level of dominance. anyway, somebody that controls the round for 4 minutes and doens’t get finished prolly wins the round. a last minute flurry doens’t eliminate all the previous activity…
[/quote]

At the risk of starting an argument over fake scoring systems… wouldn’t A “slightly” win (and thus gain 1 point each) striking, clinch/takedowns, and aggression and thus, score 3 points? And B would “dominantly win” submissions/GnP and score 2 points?

I mean, it’s kind of dumb to argue over a hypothetical, but I just don’t see how categorizing scoring is any improvement over a round scoring system. Whoever wins the round gets 10 points, the other guy gets 9. Way simpler than trying to have judges simultaneously evaluate and score multiple categories.

I still have yet to actually see a good example of a time when the 10-point must system failed?[/quote]

i don’t want to argue either…

85

[quote]jtrinsey wrote:

[quote]cycobushmaster wrote:
in that scenario, the most dominant fighter would win (B would have 4-5 points, whereas A would have 3-4 points)…hence different points for level of dominance. anyway, somebody that controls the round for 4 minutes and doens’t get finished prolly wins the round. a last minute flurry doens’t eliminate all the previous activity…
[/quote]

At the risk of starting an argument over fake scoring systems… wouldn’t A “slightly” win (and thus gain 1 point each) striking, clinch/takedowns, and aggression and thus, score 3 points? And B would “dominantly win” submissions/GnP and score 2 points?

I mean, it’s kind of dumb to argue over a hypothetical, but I just don’t see how categorizing scoring is any improvement over a round scoring system. Whoever wins the round gets 10 points, the other guy gets 9. Way simpler than trying to have judges simultaneously evaluate and score multiple categories.
[/quote]

But what is determining who “wins” a round? Right now it’s described by “effective striking, grappling, aggressiveness, and octagon control.” But in your example, Fighter A clearly had more effective striking, octagon control and maybe aggressiveness while fighter B maybe had better grappling.

Let’s say for another example that fighter A is constantly pushing the pace on the feet (cutting off the ring, pressing forward), but fighter B is picking him apart with counter strikes as he is coming in (none of which however seem to have any serious effect on A. Half way through the round fighter A takes fighter B down and winds up in his guard. B attempts a few submissions, but A quickly defends them and is never really in any danger of tapping nor does A really do any damage from B’s guard. From there A passes to side control, but just basically holds B down (despite B’s attempts to escape) , only doing enough to maintain position and not get stood up. The bell rings and the round is over.

B had more effective striking while A was more aggressive on the feet and controlled the octagon better. However on the ground B was more aggressive while A had the more effective grappling. Neither did any considerable damage to the other. Who should win the round based on the 10 point must system? Either way you want to judge it, it’s totally based on subjective opinion.

At least with an objective point based system, the winner is pretty much less subjective.

[quote]
I still have yet to actually see a good example of a time when the 10-point must system failed?[/quote]

Well, first off how do you know for certain whether the 10-point must system failed or the judges utilizing it failed? It’s impossible to really separate the two.

With a point based system it would be pretty easy to tell if one or more of the judges failed.

Example:
Actual point tally (if someone were to go back and watch the whole fight in slow motion to make absolutely certain that all appropriate points were accounted for)- 205-163 (totally arbitrary)
Judge 1’s score- 195-158
Judge 2’s score- 200-155
Judge 3’s score- 150-160

Clearly Judge 3 screwed fighter A out of quite a few points while giving fighter B nearly all of the points deserved while Judges 1 and 2 were both pretty close to the actual points deserved by both fighters. Maybe in this example Judge 3 was Cecil Peoples and didn’t award A the points which he accrued with his superior grappling in the fight. This would also give the UFC grounds to argue with the state athletic commissions for not having certain judges score their events. Or, maybe it would actually result in more knowledgeable judges (since they’d actually have to know all of the different positions on the ground, different submission skills, reversals, etc…).

As far as examples where the judges/10-point must system failed:
Machida vs Shogun 1
and
Hamil vs Bisping

come to mind. I know I’ve seen some others, but those two really stuck out in my head.

Really though, anytime there is a “questionable” decision that is a failure of the judges/scoring system IMO.

86

The Shogun-Machida fight wasn’t an example of the 10-point must system failing. It was just a poorly judged fight; any scoring system would have failed. Shogun clearly won the 4th and 5th while Machida clearly won the 2nd. Most people would agree that Shogun had a slight but definite edge in the 1st and the 3rd was mostly a tossup. The 10-point must system, when used by rational and competent human beings, would give Shogun the edge.

The Rampage-Machida fight is actually a decent example of 10-point must failing in a little way, as Machida dominated the 3rd round and was more effective when viewing the fight as a whole, but Rampage did probably win the first two rounds. But really, Machida can’t complain because he should have stayed busier in the first two rounds.

The thing is, you are going to ask judges (who already obviously have trouble following the action at ringside) to be calculating every single strike, takedown, and grappling move in every round? It’s just not humanely possible, not to mention the fact that assigning equal points to every strike or every takedown is silly. It doesn’t account for individual style and will start turning it into “point-scoring” rather than fighting. If one guy lands 5 clean strikes that don’t do much, he shouldn’t score 5 times (or 2.5x or whatever) the amount of points that are scored by one shot that rocks him and sends him reeling and covering up.

87

[quote]jtrinsey wrote:
The Shogun-Machida fight wasn’t an example of the 10-point must system failing. It was just a poorly judged fight; any scoring system would have failed. Shogun clearly won the 4th and 5th while Machida clearly won the 2nd. Most people would agree that Shogun had a slight but definite edge in the 1st and the 3rd was mostly a tossup. The 10-point must system, when used by rational and competent human beings, would give Shogun the edge.

The Rampage-Machida fight is actually a decent example of 10-point must failing in a little way, as Machida dominated the 3rd round and was more effective when viewing the fight as a whole, but Rampage did probably win the first two rounds. But really, Machida can’t complain because he should have stayed busier in the first two rounds.

The thing is, you are going to ask judges (who already obviously have trouble following the action at ringside) to be calculating every single strike, takedown, and grappling move in every round? It’s just not humanely possible, not to mention the fact that assigning equal points to every strike or every takedown is silly. It doesn’t account for individual style and will start turning it into “point-scoring” rather than fighting. If one guy lands 5 clean strikes that don’t do much, he shouldn’t score 5 times (or 2.5x or whatever) the amount of points that are scored by one shot that rocks him and sends him reeling and covering up.[/quote]

i think most people dislike many of the decisions under the current system, which is prolly mostly due to the judges. i guess that’s why myself and several others suggest point total criteria, mainly to give judges some concrete scoring tools. i think right now it’s too subjective for the judges…

perosnally, i don’t like scoring the fight off the overall fight (like Pride), as this is still extremely subjective.

however, what do you suggest? or are you satisfied with the current decision process?

88

I think the 10-point must system is fine. I think the first thing to be corrected is to have the judges watch monitors instead of sitting at the ringside. Give each judge monitors with 3 feeds going at once so they can see all the angles. I know that one of the judges (I’m pretty sure it was after the Machida-Shogun fight) commented that he thought several strikes landed at ringside, but after watching a replay of the fight, he could see that they didn’t land and he would have scored the fight differently.

So, my first thing would to improve the judges themselves, or at least give them some tools to help judge the fight better, before they start changing the scoring system.

89

[quote]jtrinsey wrote:
I think the 10-point must system is fine. I think the first thing to be corrected is to have the judges watch monitors instead of sitting at the ringside. Give each judge monitors with 3 feeds going at once so they can see all the angles. I know that one of the judges (I’m pretty sure it was after the Machida-Shogun fight) commented that he thought several strikes landed at ringside, but after watching a replay of the fight, he could see that they didn’t land and he would have scored the fight differently.

So, my first thing would to improve the judges themselves, or at least give them some tools to help judge the fight better, before they start changing the scoring system.[/quote]

I think that’s a good idea, regardless of whether they changed the scoring system. Not only could they see things from better vantage points that way, but they could re-watch specific parts of the rounds in slow motion if needed.

90

Yeah, I always wondered why they don’t do this in promotions that have the facilities to rig it up. Maybe it’s a consistency thing?

91

[quote]rundymc wrote:
Yeah, I always wondered why they don’t do this in promotions that have the facilities to rig it up. Maybe it’s a consistency thing?[/quote]

I dunno… probably the same reason it is taking forever for baseball to implement instant replay, even though several games every year are decided on homeruns that are miscalled and an ump blew a call on what would have been a perfect game this year.

People hate change, especially the ones in charge.

92

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:

[quote]jtrinsey wrote:
I think the 10-point must system is fine. I think the first thing to be corrected is to have the judges watch monitors instead of sitting at the ringside. Give each judge monitors with 3 feeds going at once so they can see all the angles. I know that one of the judges (I’m pretty sure it was after the Machida-Shogun fight) commented that he thought several strikes landed at ringside, but after watching a replay of the fight, he could see that they didn’t land and he would have scored the fight differently.

So, my first thing would to improve the judges themselves, or at least give them some tools to help judge the fight better, before they start changing the scoring system.[/quote]

I think that’s a good idea, regardless of whether they changed the scoring system. Not only could they see things from better vantage points that way, but they could re-watch specific parts of the rounds in slow motion if needed. [/quote]

i agree.

CockneyBlue (where is he, btw?) mentioned when he was ringside at the Bisping-Hamill fight, he thought Bisping won. he said when he watched it afterwards on TV that Hamill dominated…

93

I make TV for a living maybe I can help-

what you see at home is vastly different from what 3 judges sitting ringside see- they see one plane.

You will see more at home lots more.

A director of most sporting events is very sharp unless it is a ghetto show they are very experienced
at bringing the best view to you at home what you are watching is the ‘cut’ of 6 to 7 or more cameras
cut together to form what we call program.

the Director - actually the TD that is technical director who does the button pushing- is going to cut form camera to camera to lay down the best views , with the least obstruction they can
and at the same time the camera operators are going to give the best framing of the action
as guided by the director

to compare
Knicks basketball does it with 6 cameras 4 court side and maybe two smaller cameras mounted to hoops
MLB and NFL use 12 or more- unless its playoffs , series, or superbowl or euivalent.
Then its more like 30 cameras.
Golf - uses about 24 - just do the playing field.
HBO boxing SHOW time boxing both use about 6 cameras and one or two robotic overheads.

add to that playback- mostly its HD - or Xd which for this discussion is like dvd ram- but bigger.
you can view playback frame by frame that is 1/60 of a second for HD.
that is far more then what you can watch at ringside.

compare that to what 3 judges will see.

FILA- worlds for judo or wrestling has multiple refs and judges.
other organizations do similar things and there is plenty of bad officiating-
lots of language issues, and yes bias.

judging MMA is complicated to say the least.

I think knowlege of the rules is important-
both to the fighter and the judges

NCAA you can read the rule book, same for most FILA international stuff- you would be stupid not to-

but for judging - Im not sure how many people who know what they are looking at are licensed to do so.

94

I completely agree with KMC. It’s so much different when you’re ringside and you not only SEE what’s going on but you HEAR what’s going on- loud body shots don’t come through on TV, but when you heard that clap each time, it changes your perspective on things.

Plus, depending on where you’re sitting or stationed- well, you can see a VERY different fight depending where you watch it from.

Another thing- the announcers. Listening to Jim Lampley and drunk old Larry Merchant ramble about how incredible a given fighter is doing will change how you look at the fight. It’s much different when you’re watching it and there’s NO commentary, only what you’re seeing and hearing.

I have scored fights completely differently watching them live vs. watching them on TV.