The round based scoring system is forever going to hurt the sport of MMA. It doesn’t make sense. These athletic commissions just stole it from boxing because they’re all former boxing guys. The fact we still have it in the 2020’s is moronic beyond belief.
Let’s go over just a regular round (one fighter wins, another fighter loses) in the typical 10-9 sense:
Let’s say there’s 100 points given in a round distributed to each fighter. If a fighter gets 101 points then it becomes a 10-8 round.
Round 1: 51-49 (Fighter B) = 10-9 fighter B
Round 2: 51-49 (Fighter B) = 10-9 fighter B
Round 3: 100-0 (Fighter A) = 10-9 fighter A
So not only did fighter A outscore fighter B 198-102, but he did all of his damage in the later stages of the fight. So closer to the end of the fight is when he really beat up his opponent. ANYONE watching a fight like that in real life knows who won the fight. My grandma knows who won the fight. I often say “He won the fight, but the other guy won the MMA match” - that shouldn’t be a thing that exists but it does.
This is exactly what happened with Machida vs. Rampage when Rampage was shocked when his hand was raised.
The Japanese really had it right with the 10 min round and 5 min round and scoring the fight AS A WHOLE.