Looking over josh thomsons record, its a shame how misleading his losses to ben henderson and melendez are. I felt josh won both those fights but thats not the point.
I wish we were more realistic about fighting in the sense that in order to win, you need to dominate to a point that almost anyone watching would agree.
If you have 4 judges then there will be more draws, which at the least pays the respect due to both fighters. Its not as though we are looking at split decisions and saying, yeh well thomson won 33% of that fight and benson won 66%. That would be ridiculous but atleast it would be fair.
For that reason, we need to be more specific with losses and still give the loser credit where its due, or save all that unnecessary effort and call the fight a draw. The record will tell you they both did well.
I'm not really one to point this kind of thing out, but this comes across as one of those "a trophy for everyone because we're all winners on the inside!" kind of thing.
Does it suck being on the wrong side of a close decision? I'm sure it does. But it keeps the divisions moving. Otherwise, deciding a #1 contender could take 6+ months if the top 2 guys fight to a draw, and what is the champion supposed to do? Fight a lower ranked, less vetted opponent?
I get the impulse, though, it sucks that some fighters seem to be magnets for these kinds of close decisions.
I agree on more judges but I disagree on the draws. I will get shit for this but I believe that judges should be distributed evenly around the octagon. 8 seems like a fitting number and they should be definitely be using video replays.