How did you score the main event?

All rounds hold the same weight, 'most weight' makes no sense. The third was no where near as dominant of a round as the the fifth. The third had danger but ended close, the fifth was a runaway, lousy compared to some of the others because it was so one sided and dominant.

GDPofDRC wrote:

All rounds hold the same weight, 'most weight' makes no sense. The third was no where near as dominant of a round as the the fifth. The third had danger but ended close, the fifth was a runaway, lousy compared to some of the others because it was so one sided and dominant.

I mean "weight" in that a 10-8 has more bearing then a 10-9.

lousy cause it was one gassed guy on top of an even more gassed guy.

captain organic wrote:

The 5th rnd was lousy, 2 completely gassed fighters, and in an all time great fight, I am not giving the worst rnd of the fight, BY FAR, the most weight. I don't care how many ineffectual punches Rua landed.

Imo the rnd in which a guy gets rocked and is a finger nail away from being finished is a more dominant rnd.

i agree with this

If you only base your scoring on damage how do you score any of Jon Fitch's fights? If damage is all there is to it someone can go in, get his ass handed to him for 4:30 and then drop the other guy, stand over him throwing punches for thirty seconds and win the round? Come on. The fact is Henderson was closer to finishing Shogun but then before and after 37 seconds of that the entire round was very competitive and may have gone to Shogun 10-9 if that 37 second interval hadn't happened.

Ludo wrote:

If you only base your scoring on damage how do you score any of Jon Fitch's fights? If damage is all there is to it someone can go in, get his ass handed to him for 4:30 and then drop the other guy, stand over him throwing punches for thirty seconds and win the round? Come on. The fact is Henderson was closer to finishing Shogun but then before and after 37 seconds of that the entire round was very competitive and may have gone to Shogun 10-9 if that 37 second interval hadn't happened.

Well fitch does tend to control rnds from start to finish, and I never give that guy a 10-8. Don't remember too many times he was rocked(except his loss to GSP, (and if Rua vs Hendo rnd 5 was 10-8, then at least a couple of the GSP vs Fitch rnds should have been 10-6)).

And rnd 3, that was not Rua merely being rocked, that was as close as I have ever seen to a guy being finished, without the ref jumping in. I thought that was approaching seriously dangerous territory. And this factored into to how amazing this fight was. The fact that Rua came back from that, and actually take the next 2 rnds, and have Dan in trouble in the 4th(more trouble then in the 5th iirr)) is truly remarkable. But fact remains Rua was pummelled at that point, and I don't care that he held Hendo against the fence (and ate a bunch of brutal elbows for his troubles) for 2 minutes after that. That pummelling, those 10-15 punches thrown, were so much more damaging then the 70 gassed out punches Rua would throw in the 5th.

Again, the unified rules state nothing about damage but it certainly helps. Dan had Shogun very much close to being finished but then he almost got heel hooked, then he couldn't get off the cage. Then he got taken down, then he got his back taken. There is no reason to give a 10-8 round to someone being overwhelmingly dominant for 37 seconds and then letting the other guy get right back in it.

Damage or not Rua owned round 5. He throws just under eleven times the strikes Hendo does, lands just under ten times the strikes Dan lands, passes into mount five times in that round, and never lets Hendo have a moment to breathe. Gassed or not that kind of round deserves a 10-8. Effective striking, grappling, aggression, and octagon control. All of which were decided and maintained from start to finish by one fighter.

The following is from the unified rules:

Quote :

(c) Judges shall evaluate mixed martial arts techniques, such as effective striking, effective grappling, control of the fighting area, effective aggressiveness and defense.


(d) Evaluations shall be made in the order in which the techniques appear in (c) above, giving the most weight in scoring to effective striking, effective grappling, control of the fighting area andeffective aggressiveness and defense.

(e) Effective striking is judged by determining the total number of legal heavy strikes landed by acontestant.

(f) Effective grappling is judged by considering the amount of successful executions of a legal takedown and reversals. Examples of factors to consider are take downs from standing positionto mount position, passing the guard to mount position, and bottom position fighters using anactive, threatening guard.

(g) Fighting area control is judged by determining who is dictating the pace, location and position of the bout. Examples of factors to consider are countering a grappler’s attempt attakedown by remaining standing and legally striking ; taking down an opponent to force aground fight; creating threatening submission attempts, passing the guard to achieve mount, andcreating striking opportunities.

(h) Effective aggressiveness means moving forward and landing a legal strike.

(i) Effective defense means avoiding being struck, taken down or reversed while countering with offensive attacks.

(j) The following objective scoring criteria shall be utilized by the judges when scoring a round;
1. A round is to be scored as a 10-10 Round when both contestants appear to be fighting evenly and neither contestant shows clear dominance in a round;
2. A round is to be scored as a 10-9 Round when a contestant wins by a close margin, landing the greater number of effective legal strikes, grappling and other maneuvers;
3. A round is to be scored as a 10-8 Round when a contestant overwhelmingly dominates by striking or grappling in a round.
4. A round is to be scored as a 10-7 Round when a contestant totally dominates by striking or grappling in a round.

Notice that nowhere in there does it say anything about being close to a finish, or dealing damage.

I think how close one is to being finished, and the effects of damage, are inherently tied in with the idea of dominance.

Not necessarily. People scored the third round of BJ Penn vs Jon Fitch 10-8 but at no point was BJ ever close to being finished. He didn't take damage beyond what a fighter would expect to take on the bottom position against a strong wrestler. Damage may be tied in but it's not a prerequisite for dominance. Stephan Bonnar got 10-8 rounds this past weekend for being on top the entire round and keeping Kingsbury smothered. We're not setting new precedents here, if anything we should be arguing whether the fifth round was 10-8 or 10-7 before 10-8 and 10-9.

I need to recheck my thoughts on Penn vs Fitch b4 I proceed.

Aight, it's not linear, but it can def jive with my current argument.
"I went Fitch.

I thought both the first and 2nd were very close. possible 10-10's the both of em. Sure BJ surprised with the takedown, and took Fitch's back, but Fitch reversed each time and ended with top control.

and the third was all Fitch.

As someone said earlier, if u could scored the whole fight, then it would be Fitch, but rnd by rnd it looked more like a draw. I do see how that would be the case with the way judges traditionally score fights.

But imo, if one guy looks to have won the entire fight, then judges should be liberal in their rnd by rnd scoring to award that guy the W. and if that means giving Fitch a 10-7 3rd, then so be it. "


I liked Fitch there, I liked Hendo on Sat. I can't quite get in line with the current scoring system and how it is implemented.

I can understand the concept of the system being flawed given it's vague guidelines but just judging how we would judge it devoid of a set of rules to follow for it doesn't really help. It's kind of like saying someone is held in football without knowing the definition of holding to begin with.