Everyone here, without exception, rails against the judging in MMA in general, and specifically, against their frustrating -- and just plain incorrect -- valuing of "control" above all else.
Yet now suddenly many of those same people are justifying Alistair Overeem's win over Werdum by that same measure. These people have inexplicably gone to the dark side.
Alistair did not outstrike Werdum. Werdum threw more and landed more strikes in every round. Therefore, Alistair could not have won "effective striking", which is tied for the most heavily weighted criteria.
The other most heavily weighted criteria is effective grappling. Alistair attempted no submissions, had no threatening guard, had few if any actual takedowns; meanwhile, Werdum had at least one or two submission attempts, threatened from the bottom, and managed to drag Alistair down a few times. Therefore, Alistair could not have won "effective grappling."
So there you have it. Werdum won both of the top criteria. There is simply no need to even take the other categories into account; but even if you did, you have Werdum winning aggression -- since he "moved forward and land[ed] strikes" more than Alistair did. You can give Alistair the "control" category if you'd like.
The only argument for giving Alistair the fight is if you insist, based on little to no evidence, that the few strikes he landed were dramatically more damaging than the many strikes Werdum landed. Of course, damage is not considered in the scoring criteria, so even if you did know for a fact that one hook from Alistair was worth 4-5 punches or knees from Werdum, it would not matter.
So, congratulations, guys -- you've become that which you hate. You are now officially awarding a fight to the fighter who "controlled the cage" rather than the fighter who attempted more attacks (standing and on the ground) and who landed more strikes.
I expect this to mean no more complaining in the future when your favorite "exciting" fighter loses 30-27 to the boring wall n staller, jab n dancer you hate.
Dude, did you see Overeem's muscles???
Good Post orcus! VTFU!
Werdum trying to act like he was hurt after every punch or knee in order to get Overeem to follow him to the ground is what lost him the fight. I knew what he was doing but even I thought Alistair had him hurt a few times. Let's say the judges scored only half of those as knockdowns, that's enough to lose the fight right there. It was the same strategy Melendez used against Aoki. 
"Let's say the judges scored only half of those as knockdowns"
Knockdowns are not mentioned anywhere in the scoring criteria, and in any case I didn't see anything that a trained, experienced judge should have thought was an actual knockdown. Also, I'm not trying to figure out why the JUDGES gave the fight to Overeem -- we know that they value "control" above everything, contrary to the actual rules. I'm trying to figure out why the UG posters have suddenly taken the same tack; I assume the knowledgeable posters here didn't see any legitimate knockdowns.
Melendez outlanded Aoki 75-8.
Pulling guard: -1 point.
/Thread
Ok maybe "scored as knockdowns" is a bad choice or words, more like recognized them as knockdowns. This could have easily caused them to believe Overeem had the more effective striking. Like I said it was easy to see what Werdum was doing trying to sell the knockdowns in order to get Overeem to chase him down. What I'm saying is that even to someone like myself it made it appear as if Alistair landed some decent strikes, it was hard to tell at times. Another thing is that Werdum was on the defensive almost the entire time, when he decided to attack he was doing very well and I didn't honestly understand his gameplan.
As far as a UGers opinion on who one the fight, one guy was engaging while standing, dictating the pace of the fight and where it took place. The other also showed some success on his feet, but bizarrely decides to butt flop for the entire duration of the fight expecting his opponent to enter the only realm of MMA where he is superior. Alistair actually did stay in top control for a portion of the fight and Werdum was unable to formulate any type of offense off his back.
I didn't mean to include the Melendez/Aoki comment, I was going to mention the similar game plans between Melendez and Overeem but decided not to, I just forgot to delete that sentence
In every controversial fight, atleast 1 media source gives the loser the win. In the Torres fight for example, everyone doing play by plays gave Torres every round. Yet as far as i can see the only source giving Werdum the win here is Fightmetric and they use a horribly flawed system to calculate it.
Most of Werdums offense were jabs. In terms of significant strikes, he only landed 11 more strikes than Alistair. Yet on 2 different moments, Alistair rocked him. And by that i mean you could actually see him get stunned and his knees buckle, one was a knee, left hook straight combo, the other was a knee to the chin that had Werdum pull deep half guard
I also have to pull out the "do you even trane bro?" card. The flaw in fightmetrics system is that they refuse to count any takedowns that does not result in a dominant position on the ground and apparently neither do you. Yet nowhere does it state this in the actual commission scoring system
Those bully pushes Overeem was doing were actually legit throws/sweeps
"Most of Werdums offense were jabs. In terms of significant strikes, he only landed 11 more strikes than Alistair. Yet on 2 different moments, Alistair rocked him. And by that i mean you could actually see him get stunned and his knees buckle, one was a knee, left hook straight combo, the other was a knee to the chin that had Werdum pull deep half guard"
I thought Alistair was rocked on at least one occasion as well, I'll have to rewatch.
"The flaw in fightmetrics system is that they refuse to count any takedowns that does not result in a dominant position on the ground and apparently neither do you. Yet nowhere does it state this in the actual commission scoring system"
This is the unified rules definition of effective grappling:
2) “Effective Grappling”: The successful execution of a legal takedowns and/or reversals including the following maneuvers:
a) Takedowns from standing position into dominant positions, or moving from guard and half guard positions to side control or mount position;
b) Passing the guard into more dominant positions
c) Bottom position fighters using an active, threatening guard.
Is that a different one?
"I. Effective Grappling
1. The Judge shall recognize the value of both the clean takedown and active guard position.
2. The Judge shall recognize that a fighter who is able to cleanly takedown his opponent, is effectively grappling.
3. A Judge shall recognize that a fighter on his back in an active guard position, can effectively grapple, through execution of repeated threatening attempts at submission and reversal resulting in continuous defense from the top fighter.
4. A Judge shall recognize that a fighter who maneuvers from guard to mount is effectively grappling.
5. A Judge shall recognize that the guard position alone shall be scored neutral or even, if none of the preceding situations were met.(items 2-4)
6. A Judge shall recognize that if the fighters remain in guard the majority of a round with neither fighter having an edge in clean striking or effective grappling, (items 2-4), the fighter who scored the clean takedown deserves the round.
7. A clean reversal is equal to a clean takedown in effective grappling"
"Knockdowns are not mentioned anywhere in the scoring criteria"
3. A Judge may determine a round was dominating if a fighter was adversely affected by one of the following:
-knocked down from standing position by clean strike
-by submission attempt
-from a throw
-from clean strikes either standing or grounded
Well, point a) right there would encompass all of Alistair's standing sweeps, giving him a pretty high rating in the effective grappling category. The fault lies, again, with the unified rules themselves as much as it does with the judges. Myself, I was quite impressed with the judges giving even one round on one card to Werdum; something's better than nothing.
I thought it was a close fight of course, and assumed it would have been a split decision in Pride.
"I thought it was a close fight of course, and assumed it would have been a split decision in Pride."
Kharitonov beat him by split decision in a somewhat similar fight
Hard to say, I see different rules everywhere and I always just click the top hit on Google.
Kharitonov fight was just as boring, but Werdum didn't outland him on the feet. I think these days Werdum would probably be able to get him down.
Congrats to the CHAMP for forcing top tier oppenent to flop in fear.
i CAN NOT agree more with this. its ridiculous that anyone can think that overeem won
Empire -Empire also gets a VTFU.
That's 2 in one thread for those playing at home.