Do MMA judges undervalue submission attempts?

Underground
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The Unified Rules of MMA require judges to first and foremost determine the winner of any round looking at effective striking and effective grappling. Judges are instructed that these “shall be considered the first priority of round assessments” and if a round winner can be determined using these criteria then no other factors are looked to. 

As previously explained, under the criteria striking is not more important than grappling and vice versa. Instead judges are asked to look at these offensive categories for “immediate or cumulative impact with the potential to contribute towards the end of the match with the IMMEDIATE weighing in more heavily than the cumulative impact“. It does not matter whether a technique is striking or grappling based, rather it matters whether the technique causes immediate or cumulative impact (think damage when you see the word impact). In other words the ‘effect‘ of the techniques are a key focus.

Appreciating the above, a recent study was published in the Journal of Applied Sports Management noting that while “judges appear to be following fight evaluation criteria” and that most offensive measures increase the chances of winning a round that “the relative difference in submission attempts variable is not statistically significant in increasing the log odds of winning a round.“

In the study, titled The Way of the Fight: An Analysis of MMA Judging, the author reviewed FightMetric data from November 17, 2000, to December 19, 2015 (Note the Unified Rules judging criteria overwent a major overhaul in 2016 and data from this period onward is not included in the study casting some limits on its value). Using this data the author looked at various measures of striking and grappling to see if they help predict the winner of any given round. 

The author broke offensive output into several categories including knockdowns, strikes landed, significant strikes landed, takedowns, and submission attempts. The author noted that all of these categories could be linked to better predicting the winner of a round with the exception of submission attempts with the author concluding as follows:

Winning fighters all have higher numbers than the losing fighters, except for the submission attempt variable. Judges appear to be valuing the number of strikes landed and attempted, takedowns landed, and control of the octagon; however, per the data, submission attempts are not valued. Additionally, in terms of split decisions, Table 4 shows the averages across all split decision contests segmented between winning and losing fighters. The numbers are closer together for split decisions. Even so, winning fighters edge out losing fighters in all categories except for submissions attempted

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Does the submission attempt impact the fighter? 

If so then it is “scored”. 

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Well how should submission attempts be valued?

Lets say we count each strike as 1 point. In a single round a fighter is likely to land over 10 strikes at least. In many rounds its 10s of strikes.

And lets say your standard failed triangle is worth what? 5 points? 10 points? The issue is that you will find that if a fighter loses a round after a failed submission attempt then most likely their opponent landed over 5 strikes more than them. The strikes cancel out.

Its a pretty simple equation.

I score fights, I count strikes and grappling. Its not an issue.

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Also some submission attempts are trash. So often we see armbars that are not close at all. So how are we supposed to score that?

A shitty triangle gets very few points in my book.

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Things are much easier to judge after the rule change in Jan of 2019. The question you have to ask your self was did the submission impact the fighter....was there damage?

For example, a round is ending and a fighter “flashes” a submission, wether that be falling back for a leg or flashing a triangle. Ask yourself did the “attempt” do any damage. 

Examples of this could be a fighter getting out of a choke and being fatigued or gassed. Another example could be a fighter that was caught in an armbar and escapes. As a judge have you noticed that the fighter has now stopped throwing punches with that arm as much or with less intensity.

There are three judges for a reason. Nobody can accurately tell how much damage I do if I kick a fighter in the body and he blocks it with his arm. How do you measure the damage? Quality judges can tell when a fighter is landing, acccunualting and reeling.

Damage FIRST

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SportScience -

Well how should submission attempts be valued?

Lets say we count each strike as 1 point. In a single round a fighter is likely to land over 10 strikes at least. In many rounds its 10s of strikes.

And lets say your standard failed triangle is worth what? 5 points? 10 points? The issue is that you will find that if a fighter loses a round after a failed submission attempt then most likely their opponent landed over 5 strikes more than them. The strikes cancel out.

Its a pretty simple equation.

I score fights, I count strikes and grappling. Its not an issue.

All judges do measure differently but none that I know use a real count. One example of measure is territory based like football. The example I will give is easier for a judge given they sit at a desk and if you watch a fight at home you’re in a chair or couch but I’ll go on. You can measure a round by placing a pen right in the middle of the table or in front of your body. Fight starts and Fighter A lands ten jabs, fighter B has yet to get anything off. You can safely move that pen in a given direction. Some choose to move it towards the loser as he’s the one being opposed. Some will move the pencil towards the fighter throwing the jabs given he’s the one dealing the damage. It doesn’t matter your method. Now fighter B lands ten straights, you now move the pen back the other direction. This method works especially well if and when a round is interrupted and paused for any reason. Let’s say a fighter is injured and takes five minutes. When the action resumes you know exactly where in the round you left off. You shall move the pen back and forth given the DAMAGE regardless if it came from striking, wrestling or a submission.

In terms of wrestling and takedowns. You shall grade takedowns on damage so an inside trip may not be given any credit where as a suplex will move the pen much farther.

Last scenario, fighter A lands 10 jabs in the first minute. Fighter B shoots a low inside single and lands in guard and for whatever reason throws zero punches for the remainder of the round. This is just an example and a good ref is going to stand them up. But to continue, the round ends who won that round? IMO Fighter A was the only one to do any damage and wins the round.

To make this easy. Ask yourself, “who would you rather be”? 

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FlowWithTheGo -
SportScience -

Well how should submission attempts be valued?

Lets say we count each strike as 1 point. In a single round a fighter is likely to land over 10 strikes at least. In many rounds its 10s of strikes.

And lets say your standard failed triangle is worth what? 5 points? 10 points? The issue is that you will find that if a fighter loses a round after a failed submission attempt then most likely their opponent landed over 5 strikes more than them. The strikes cancel out.

Its a pretty simple equation.

I score fights, I count strikes and grappling. Its not an issue.

All judges do measure differently but none that I know use a real count. One example of measure is territory based like football. The example I will give is easier for a judge given they sit at a desk and if you watch a fight at home you’re in a chair or couch but I’ll go on. You can measure a round by placing a pen right in the middle of the table or in front of your body. Fight starts and Fighter A lands ten jabs, fighter B has yet to get anything off. You can safely move that pen in a given direction. Some choose to move it towards the loser as he’s the one being opposed. Some will move the pencil towards the fighter throwing the jabs given he’s the one dealing the damage. It doesn’t matter your method. Now fighter B lands ten straights, you now move the pen back the other direction. This method works especially well if and when a round is interrupted and paused for any reason. Let’s say a fighter is injured and takes five minutes. When the action resumes you know exactly where in the round you left off. You shall move the pen back and forth given the DAMAGE regardless if it came from striking, wrestling or a submission.

In terms of wrestling and takedowns. You shall grade takedowns on damage so an inside trip may not be given any credit where as a suplex will move the pen much farther.

Last scenario, fighter A lands 10 jabs in the first minute. Fighter B shoots a low inside single and lands in guard and for whatever reason throws zero punches for the remainder of the round. This is just an example and a good ref is going to stand them up. But to continue, the round ends who won that round? IMO Fighter A was the only one to do any damage and wins the round.

To make this easy. Ask yourself, “who would you rather be”? 

I know a few judges who use the pen method. I tried it a few times but I found I had no evidence at the end of the fight to actually explain my answer.

With counting strikes its quite easy to say at the end of a round, I have “Fighter A” up by 5 strikes and a takedown vs “Fighter B” with 1 sub attempt. So “Fighter A” wins the round.

Counting strikes is very easy in my opinion. I hold my fingers under the table so I don’t have to write anything down. I see guys doing the pen method or using paper and pen to write things down and it forces them to look down.

The pen method works, but its inferior to counting because its just your opinion its not based on facts. The hard thing about counting is deciding when a strike is worth more than 1 point. And what is a knockdown worth? In my book its 15 points for a knockdown.

I only score grappling if the striking is even or if the grappling is the majority of the round. The thing is usually when fighters are grappling they are using ground and pound so you can count strikes there too.

Also, when I judge even after I count up all the scores by counting strikes, takedowns, submissions and so on, then I think about the round and give my opinion. I check if my opinion tells the same story as the numbers I have calculated if they match I move forward. If they do not match I think long and hard about it, I start thinking about agression and octagon control if I need to move on from an even match of striking and grappling.

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So to be clear you have a pen in your hand and you do tally’s? Do you look down away from the fight to score each “mark or tally”? How do you differ the tally’s from jabs, straights and kicks. 

Fights should not be tallied.

Try the territory/pen method. Easy peasy lemon squeezy

The 2019 rule change made fights easier to score for everyone. 

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It’s a hard thing to score, especially using the pen method above. Not all strikes are equal, not even all jabs, or all leg kicks. Just because they land doesn’t mean they’re effective, and even some kicks that are checked do damage. As for submission attempts…how do you score a guillotine when a guy’s head is stick in there for 45 seconds, then he escapes? If it was tight, he wouldn’t have been able to hang out for almost a minute there. If it’s not tight, does it even matter?

Scoring fights is hard, and I tend to watch the rounds and basically ask myself who I felt got the better of the round. If I’m coaching both fighters, am I likely to tell them “great work, keep it up” or am I going to tell them we need to change something ASAP? Which guy would I rather have been in that round? There’s no perfect way to score all the various strikes and grappling exchanges, but if you’ve trained or watched enough MMA, you should know which strikes and grappling exchanges are more effective.

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I hope I wasn’t preachy but tallies are no way to judge a fight. 

for rickmassmma, what you said is true but it’s exactly why there are three judges. 

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FlowWithTheGo -

So to be clear you have a pen in your hand and you do tally’s? Do you look down away from the fight to score each “mark or tally”? How do you differ the tally’s from jabs, straights and kicks. 

Fights should be tallied.

Try the territory/pen method. Easy peasy lemon squeezy

The 2019 rule change made fights easier to score for everyone. 

No no I count every strike with my fingers. I only count for the fighter with the higher score. Left hand for red corner right hand for blue. You sound like a judge have you seriously never heard of this method? Boxing, Muay Thai, K1 and MMA judges use this method and have been for a long time. Super popular.

“Red Corner” lands 3 strikes I have 3 fingers up on my left hand 0 on the right

“Blue Corner” lands 4 strikes I have 0 fingers up on my left and 1 up on my right

So 3 - 4 = 1 for blue corner

When the strikes go up over 5 you have to remember where you are at. I do it by counting with my second knuckle 6-10 then back to my fingers 11-15. Most fights you don’t need to count higher than 15 strikes in a round.

Never ever look away from the action. Never.

I do not differ the tally from Jabs, straights and kicks unless they stagger the opponent or clearly do a big damage. If they do big damage its 2-3 points. Everything else is 1 point. I do it this way because some jabs do big damage and some straights do stuff all damage. Its also much easier to count.

Now going back to what I said before, after I finish my count I think about the fight and pick a winner based on opinion/feel (opinion and feel is your pen method, I am just not using the pen). I then match my scores with my opinion/feel and based on that I score the fight.

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Too much room for error^. 

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Rickmassmma - It's a hard thing to score, especially using the pen method above. Not all strikes are equal, not even all jabs, or all leg kicks. Just because they land doesn't mean they're effective, and even some kicks that are checked do damage. As for submission attempts...how do you score a guillotine when a guy's head is stick in there for 45 seconds, then he escapes? If it was tight, he wouldn't have been able to hang out for almost a minute there. If it's not tight, does it even matter?

Scoring fights is hard, and I tend to watch the rounds and basically ask myself who I felt got the better of the round. If I’m coaching both fighters, am I likely to tell them “great work, keep it up” or am I going to tell them we need to change something ASAP? Which guy would I rather have been in that round? There’s no perfect way to score all the various strikes and grappling exchanges, but if you’ve trained or watched enough MMA, you should know which strikes and grappling exchanges are more effective.

Good points. Additionally, you have situations like this: fighter A takes fighter B down but fighter A locks in a guillotine on the way down. Once it hits the canvas he is able to get full guard and crank on it. However, fighter B is a tough motherfucker and is able to hang on until fighter A burns his arms out. Fighter A lets go, and there is a scramble where both guys get up. Fighter A is visibly tired while the other guy looks fine. 

So how could/should that be scored? It’s a submission attempt, one that was even locked in tight, but ultimately did more damage to the fighter that attempted the submission that the one who had it applied on him. For the specific wording of “did it impact the fighter?”, the answer is no. It impacted the guy who had the choke. That wouldn’t count against him though, right? I would think it would cancel out, but I’m not sure how a judge sees that exchange. The only “damage” being done was to fighter A’s gas tank, but it is immediate. However the takedown shouldn’t be scored for effective grappling because even though the guy escaped the choke, he did nothing with the takedown aside from nearly getting submitted. I also don’t see how fighter A should score points there, unless it’s just for going for the finish and having the guy in danger? If there’s no damage can it be considered “effective grappling”? 

So many variables and different scenarios, it has to be incredibly difficult to be a judge or ref. 

Edit: I guess thinking about it, I would give that exchange to the guy with the sub attempt. He was being aggressive, looking for the finish. However, I wouldn’t know how that exchange would factor into the point system. 

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Defensive action is never scored. MMA is an offensive sport. If fighter A burned his arms out nothing is scored against him, nothing is scored for the other fighter for surviving even though fighter A has now self inflicted himself. Only offensive “impact” is judged. I use the word impact because that’s what the rules use for verbiage. Damage isn’t used because it doesn’t look as good to the legislators. 

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FlowWithTheGo -

I hope I wasn’t preachy but tallies are no way to judge a fight. 

for rickmassmma, what you said is true but it’s exactly why there are three judges. 

I feel like there should be a person counting strikes and a person assessing the damage of the strikes. I don’t know why, I just get the idea that focusing on the count might take away from being able to see how much damage is being done, and who is controlling the exchanges. If I’m watching a fight and counting strikes (which I have done before), I find myself honing in on strictly the numbers and by the end of the round I don’t even know who’s winning. I can’t really “watch” a fight and count strikes simultaneously. 

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FlowWithTheGo -

No defensive action is scored ever. MMA is an offensive sport. If fighter A burned his arms out nothing is scored against him, nothing is scored for the other fighter for surviving even though the fighter has now self inflicted himself. Only offensive “impact” is judged. I use the word impact because that’s what the rules use for verbiage. Damage isn’t used because it doesn’t look as good to the legislators. 

Okay so with what you just said, we are taking “effective grappling” out of the equation, since there was no damage to fighter B. At that point wouldn’t the scoring fall back to aggression and octagon control? In which case I would have to say fighter A has the advantage because of his aggression. 

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MasterofMartialArts -
FlowWithTheGo -

No defensive action is scored ever. MMA is an offensive sport. If fighter A burned his arms out nothing is scored against him, nothing is scored for the other fighter for surviving even though the fighter has now self inflicted himself. Only offensive “impact” is judged. I use the word impact because that’s what the rules use for verbiage. Damage isn’t used because it doesn’t look as good to the legislators. 

Okay so with what you just said, we are taking “effective grappling” out of the equation, since there was no damage to fighter B. At that point wouldn’t the scoring fall back to aggression and octagon control? In which case I would have to say fighter A has the advantage because of his aggression. 

No those are the old days. 

1. Damage “impact” is your first category on which a fight is judged.

2. Domination

3. Duaration

The vast majority of rounds are decided on category 1. 

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I’m sorry use the above for determining the score 10-10,10-9,10-8, the rate 10-7. 

1. Striking and grappling are “equal”

2. EffectiveAggressiveness, meaning what was actually effective and who was trying to end the contest. 

3. Fighting area control.

This is a sliding scale, just as above the majority of rounds can be decided by number 1. You can use 2 and then 3 for close rounds. You should be able to distinguish a winner of each round going 1,2,3. RARELY should a round be 10-10. It’s your job to make the tough decisions.

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Pick your winner of the round first, then decide on how much credit he should be given.

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MasterofMartialArts -
FlowWithTheGo -

I hope I wasn’t preachy but tallies are no way to judge a fight. 

for rickmassmma, what you said is true but it’s exactly why there are three judges. 

I feel like there should be a person counting strikes and a person assessing the damage of the strikes. I don’t know why, I just get the idea that focusing on the count might take away from being able to see how much damage is being done, and who is controlling the exchanges. If I’m watching a fight and counting strikes (which I have done before), I find myself honing in on strictly the numbers and by the end of the round I don’t even know who’s winning. I can’t really “watch” a fight and count strikes simultaneously. 

What happens when fighter A lands 50 jabs in a round and nothing else. In that same round fighter B lands 5 straights and a monster neck kick. Who would you rather be? The total number is crap, the number of significant strike you see on screen is also crap. Who did more damage? Who’s Mom is going to cry?