UFC President Dana White took to the airwaves recently on UFC Tonight on the Fuel Network and issued a scathing declaration about an issue that has long driven him insane: MMA judging and refereeing.
Here’s what the boss had to say:
"I’ve said it many times. In the evolution of this sport right now, one of the big problems we’re having right now is judging and reffing. It’s one of the things that drivesme crazy and attention needs to be paid to scoring and reffing. First of all, it affects guys careers as far as legacies go. Jon Jones? Jon Jones should be undefeated right now but he’s not, he’s got a loss on his record and there’stons of guys in the UFC that have those. There’s guys who’ve absolutely, clearly won fights and lost on the judges’ scorecards. Nobody’s perfect. There’s always gonna be problems. But the judging and the reffing is so bad in mixed martial arts, it drives me crazy. The fans hate it too and it hurts the sport. These athletic commissions really need to tighten up and start working on educating their refs and judges."
Dana isn’t out of line here. We’ve seen countless bad decisions rendered by the cage side judges, as well as numerous refereeing mishaps inside the cage, some that could have resulted in serious injuries. But how do you fix a system that is largely based on subjectivity?
One could argue that there should be a solid scoring system in place. For example, one point for a takedown, two points for a takedown that leads to a submission attempt or some solid ground and pound, one point for a stuffed takedown, one point for a leg kick, two points for a head strike, etc. You get the point. But the scores would still be tallied by human beings; human beings who miss things, misread situations, and make mistakes.
It’s not unlike the criminal justice system. Judges are constantly vilified for their rulings, even in cases that seem quite clear. Why? Because someone always has a different opinion.We can sermonize all day about objectivity, but we’re all human and all have our beliefs, thought processes, interpretations, and yes, biases. It’s impossible to expect those factors to be set aside in every decision. The best we can hope for is that judges of anything can minimize them and deliver a fair decision.
MMA judging is at the mercy of the same human factor. Maybe from their angle they don’t see the jab that snuck though. Or that head kick that was blocked, they don’t know that it hurt the arm that blocked it so much it greatly affected the fight. Certainly there should be some criteria in place, and judges should absolutely be educated on the nuances of MMA, which vary greatly from boxing. But in a close fight, just as in a court case, half the people are going to disagree with it because they had an interest in it going the other way.
We’ll get into refereeing a little later.
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