Kirik -Team GDP -
he's actually the Executive Officer not the Executive Director FYI.
Hence the lower case d on director.
except for the fact you call him "Executive director of the California State Athletic Commission Andy Foster "
calling him the 'director of the commission' is one thing and is acceptable. but calling him the 'Executive director' makes no sense, and is clearly confusing his title.
It be really cool to have Andy Foster start up an Association of MMA Commissions because if scoring MMA doesn't work under the conventional Boxing then why is MMA overseen by Boxing Commissions? It would be like the NFL being overlooked by MLS.
An officials perspective on the challenges of judging:
I have been both a regulator as the founding commissioner of the
Tennessee Athletic Commission and co-author of the Tennessee Athletic
Commission Act that established the commission and rules for MMA,
Boxing and Kickboxing in our state.
I have also been a ringside doctor for the UFC, Strikeforce, K1, and
Pro-boxing as well as numerous others.
Most recently I have been judging local/regional ammy and pro/am MMA
and kickboxing.
I have had the great privilege of being octagon side many times and it is
by the most fun I have as a professional. It is a great honor to be
able to work for the commissions as both a regulator and as a doctor
and judge.
I will say that until one sits octagonside and turns in a scorecard
that counts and will affect the livelyhood of an individual and his
ability to earn for his family then one should not be quick to
criticize the judging in MMA.
It is much more difficult to judge an MMA fight then most people think. I have only judged local pro fights and not yet had the great honor of judging a UFC event.
I am going to give you an inside look at just how challenging MMA
judging is and how different it is from watching it on a screen.
First off with respect to perspective. The viewers at home see the
fight from multiple camera angles which are hand picked to produce the
best visual representation of the action.
Judges are not privy to the same perspective. Judges are not seeing
the same fight that the announcers and viewers are watching and hearing about on the
television screen at home. They are not seeing what the crowd is
seeing on the jumbotron. Judges are not usually watching replays and slo-mos
during and between rounds. Yes at times monitors are available . But
on the occasions when they are available, judges are encouraged to only
use them when obstructed.
Sometimes the action is ultra-close and judges are able to witness or
hear strikes, signs of impact (glazed or stunned eyes, eyes rolling
back into head, facial or skin coloration changes, bruising, swell,
cuts and bleeding, vocalizations of pain, gait and balance problems) that are
not as obvious to the cameras at home.
Sometimes the action is further from the judges making it impossible to hear the action and challenging to see the action. Sometimes the action
is even obstructed by a post, sometimes it is obstructed by the
referee, sometimes it occurs at a bad angle where one fighter
obscures the other making it very difficult and sometimes impossible
to see techniques. It is very possible to miss effective techniques
of impact both striking and grappling.
Most fans don't know that 2 out of the 3 judging positions are
obstructed vantage points. Yes you heard me correctly 2 out of 3 of
the commission judges working at a UFC are sitting in positions where
there is an octagon post directly in front of a portion of their view.
There are open panels on the octagon but these are not assigned to 2
of the 3 judges. I know this because I have sat next to these judges as
a ringside doc. One easy improvement to judging at UFCs that the UFC
actually has control of is seating assignments/configuration.
JUDGES VIEWS COULD EASILY BE IMPROVED BY MOVING THE 2 OBSTRUCTED JUDGES TO PANELS WITHOUT POSTS IN THE VIEW.
Next judging "visible impact" of "effective" strikes is not just
technically difficult due to the physical limitations of each vantage
point but also due to inherent subjectivity of the act of determining
the degree of visible impact a certain technique has on a fighter. Is
a cut worth more than a bruise? Is swelling worth more than grunts of
pain? Is bleeding worth more than staggering? Is a thud of impact that
echoes across the arena but does not wobble a fighter worth as much as
a jab that you can't hear but snaps the opponents head back. Its
challenging enough to count/tally the sheer number of strikes and grappling
techniques. Now add a level of complexity and tally the cumulative
damage caused by effective strikes.
Assessing cumulative damage is also subjective. As a ringside doc its a big part of what I do but most judges are not docs. Its can be very subtle. Sometimes its easier
to assess between rounds as the fighters stagger, wobble, limp, or
labor their way back to their corners, gasp for air on the stool, or
not sit down at all, bleed profusely or swell. But the judges don't get
time to observe this type of damage as they have to fill in multiple
areas of their scorecards and turn them in nearly immediately after
the action stops. This can limit their ability to score the cumulative impact of the round.
The limitations of the 10-9 must system also make judging MMA
technically challenging. The current criteria state that 10-10's and
10-7's should rarely be used. The cut offs for scores are not defined elaborately and the terms that are used to describe the scores are subjective and not well defined as well ( see my previous post for a more in depth account of this and my proposed solution)
So overall as a current judge I will tell you its not easy.
As a student of this sport for the last 20 years, I will also say if you don't like the scoring system either suggest a new one or finish your opponents.
Thanks for the posts, gilbertfan. 
Thanks Kirik, I really like this guy and think it is a much better system, to really make it simple and judge who won the fight, not the crap scoring system, in addition to getting judges that have actually trained MMA.
thanks for posting gilbert fan. it's surprising to hear that 2/3 judges have obstructed views. that needs to be changed immediately imo. funny how the ufc criticizes judges, when that is the situation
Pride Never Die.
Seems like positioning of judges and having screens with what the fans see would help then for scoring everyone seems to be dancing around it but not saying 'pride scoring system'
I also things it's a straw man to say 'but what if there's 3 bruises vs 2 thuds and a cut' : 1) if it's close enough that you need to ask, then the two fighters should be considered to have done approximately equally well, 2) the problem that people complain about is that these are treated as a coin toss instead of a draw round and that the fighter treated as the winner of close rounds are credited as much as winners of damaging rounds
ttt
It's a shame Keith Kizer is too out of touch to understand just how flawed the 10 point must system is for MMA, let alone how bad the judges are in applying it. At least Andy Foster understands it's time for MMA to have its own system and has the courage to push for changes. That's what this sport needs now while it's in it's relatively early stages.
Only thing that needs to change is scoring more rounds 10-8. In order for this to happen, there needs to be well defined criteria.
10-7 is too much. MMA has too few rounds for that kind of scoring.
KingofBJJ -He has been training in almost every aspect of mma for over a decade. He has watched more mma and bjj than 99% of this forum.Simmer down "king"...
Yawn. Until Rogen started whining about the 10-9 crap, no one ever mentioned it. Now suddenly Rogan is supposed to be an expert? The guy's a freaking comedian first and commentator second. Just because you call fights, doesn't make you an expert, it just makes you a good commentator.
This is one of the most well thought out responses to the judging situation in MMA... And I like the idea. Let the judges score each round for the record and then pick a winner at the end.
You can use half points or whole points and 10-10's to keep track of who's winning by how much before rendering a final decision. This way each round is weighed more accurately instead of a single unit.
The risk is a fighter dominating one round and then just pacing himself and edging by the rest of the fight.
This should be a sticky
T-Ham - This should be a sticky
I agree!
I am a fan of Andy and the changes he's made and will continue to make, but I have a problem with judges saying "this guy won on the scorecards, but the other guy won".
Judging criteria and/or scoring method needs to be updated, but this doesn't sound like the solution. People already think judging is fixed.
Voodoo - I am a fan of Andy and the changes he's made and will continue to make, but I have a problem with judges saying "this guy won on the scorecards, but the other guy won".
Judging criteria and/or scoring method needs to be updated, but this doesn't sound like the solution. People already think judging is fixed.
Think of it this way. Instead of a judge going 10-9, 10-9. 9-10, and the win goes to fighter A, the judge in addition gives an overall score for the fight 9-10. That way it becomes not a measure of who won the most rounds, but who won the fights. There have been countless cases where a fighter barely wins two rounds, and is solidly thumped in the third and clearly was the loser, but he gets the decision. This stops that.
Considering his camo rules now? Fuck this guy's opinion on anything.
Kirik, I hate those decisions as much as the next guy, but this just seems too arbitrary...
KingofBJJ -
Yawn. Until Rogen started whining about the 10-9 crap, no one ever mentioned it. Now suddenly Rogan is supposed to be an expert? The guy's a freaking comedian first and commentator second. Just because you call fights, doesn't make you an expert, it just makes you a good commentator.