After the 30-27 scores in the Hughes fight i was just wondering if anyone knew how they pick the judges. Are they boxing judges? Are they just freinds with the commission? Do they know what submission attempts are and how to give credit for it? just wondering if anyone knew their credentials for judging MMA?
I know Dalby Shirley is a boxing judge and is like 78
years old. He probably has never seen a UFC in his
life
His knowledge of MMA is the eqivalent to mine before
UFC 1, where I thought if your on top your winning.
They should have judges who know the game Eddie Bravo,
Matt Hume, Quadros
Me and my buddies had this same conversation after that fight last night. Prides judging is ussually people who are and have been involved in the sport, UFC tends to have Boxing judges.
The 30-27 scores were an obvius disgrace. The judges that gave
Hughes the first round should be banned or retrained.
If charuto was able to mount an attack in the 3rd and make the fight
closer we would be mired in another controversy.
I think Hughes did enough to win, but Charuto dominated the first
round.
There should be an indapendant sanctioning body who certifies the judges. What is the certification process now? It is the same as becoming a NAGA referee, the old boy network.
ttt
Don't think for a second taht the judges are not taken into consideration when making odds on these fights as well. Just like when I look at boxing judges for marquis fights, I take the MMA judges into consideration. I actually keep track of judges and their scoring traits in boxing. You would be suprised what judges reward what styles. heres a list of fuked up NSAC guys that I clock regularly.
Bill Clancy
George Colon
Glen Feldman
Duane Ford
Anek Hongtongkam
John Keane
Melvina Lathan
John Lawson
Tony Paolillo
Jerry Roth
I keep tight tabs on Refs as well. Its my job.
Odessa, if you don't mind, what is your real opinion on the relationship between the Athletic Commission, promoters, and refs.
Do you think that politics and relatioships can influence what judges are on hand for a given card or fight?
I'm asking in part because Cecil Peoples, for example, seems to be on EVERY UFC card, and the guy has no appreciation of ground game, or its role in MMA.
Is it possible, or even probable, that the UFC has some say in who gets tapped as a judge?
I'm looking for opinion, here, purely, not what you can prove. If you are tracking the judging, you surely are tracking stuff that would or wouldn't indicate political ties and things like that and their effects.
If it makes it less politically dangerous, please feel free to talk about boxing, instead of MMA.
'Do you think that politics and relatioships can influence what judges are on hand for a given card or fight?'
No question in my mind that it has an influence upon the scoring in some fashion.........BUT........so does the crowd, venue, and media. I look at judges probably in the same fashion as a person that picks Jurors in courtrooms when I make a number(odds). BUT naturally I dont think the commision views the judges in the same way. I factor the judge into the number on bigger fights.
The jury comparison goes 1 step further from my point of view as well. A jury that is watching TV about a case or hearing cheers and/or boo's in the courtroom would NATURALLY be biased. Its human nature. Thats why they dont allow that in courtrooms and often keep jurors secluded during large cases in btwn deliberations.
'I'm asking in part because Cecil Peoples, for example, seems to be on EVERY UFC card, and the guy has no appreciation of ground game, or its role in MMA.'
I have no clue how they are actually assigned. I only take into consideration their history as judges for bigger promoters. ARUM is one of my favs when it comes to what I consider 'favorable' judges for Top Rank fighters. Top Rank has been plaqued with corruption and recently handed down indictments on the organization. I recently bet an arum figher last week taht was supposed to get beat on 'paper' solely bc I felt if it went to teh cards I would get the dec. Danny Perez. He won, but didnt need the judges help.
'Is it possible, or even probable, that the UFC has some say in who gets tapped as a judge?'
I truthfully have no idea. Sure someone can whisper in a judges ear IF tehy ahve that kind of relationship with them, BUT if it went public it would be career suicide and possibly jail for EITHER person if it got out. They would ahev to be sleeping 2gether to have that kind of trust as UFC does not generate the multi million dollar paydays that a boxing dec can create. (EX: DLH vs STRUM)
'I'm looking for opinion, here, purely, not what you can prove. If you are tracking the judging, you surely are tracking stuff that would or wouldn't indicate political ties and things like that and their effects.'
This is strictly my opinion based on watching 1,000's of fights and studying them on paper.
'If it makes it less politically dangerous, please feel free to talk about boxing, instead of MMA.'
I call a spade a spade regardless. I try to not use the word FIX and so on as it hurts my industry of wagering, but when a guy gets a bad dec, I am at no loss of words to give my opinion. MMA's recent judging in Vegas is a relatively new thing to me and I dont have much facts to form an opinion on the bias. Do I think the Judges found Hughes Charismatic in what exposure they had to him? I would say 1000% absolutely. Him coming out to country music and actually lookin good showed that. Its gfotta be a hard thing to do. LOL. Hypothetically, if your a 65 yr old judge and if you had a daughetr, would you feel better with her dating Hughes or Simms/Baroni. LOL. I know its a stretch, but I am just using that as an example. People love teh good guys and love to hate the same way. Even Danny Sheridan talks about Matt like he is the greatest kid in world in MMA. Not skill wise, but just as a gentleman.
I think the bad scoring SIMPLY boils down to niavity of judges watching MMA, crowd noise, prefight hype, promoters, and money. Just not under the table mioney like peopel suggest. technology is too good these days. It would be exposed. it was exposed when Lennox and Holyfield had their draw at MSG. 1 Corrupt judge. they tracked her financial records back 5 yrs and surely she had cash flow probs. Could it be proven? Nope. But who on earth would go thru those lenghs fix MMA so much as to corrupt the NSAC. The risks are too high in comparison to the rewards. There is not a DeLaHoya Hopkins 50 million dollar fight on the horizon anywhere in the future of MMA.
I hope these were ok answers. They were from the hip. Just my gut opinions and reasoning.
Yeah, I wasn't asking about bribes (other than perhaps in the form of continued, lucrative employment by "getting the gig," and being "in"). Thanks for the thoughtful response.
I agree with what you say about *public* perception, & its role, for what it's worth. I'm hard pressed, though, to see any real reasons other than social prejudices for viewing Charuto as the guy in the black hat & Matt as the lone ranger (i.e. white hat). Charuto didn't mouth off, etc., beforehand, about Hughes in any way, and seemed more than humble throughout. Just feel like that point bears some discussion (meaning, the politics that go into the crowd's perception of good guy versus bad guy).
"But who on earth would go thru those lenghs fix MMA so much as to corrupt the NSAC"
Well - then again, if the "corruption" were merely the sort of "business as usual" that already exists and can be done without anybody having to literally ask for anything, specifically, then you would think that the parties involved in MMA at the highest gross brackets would already have preexisting promotional relationships with the NSAC, related to other events.
I guess the language - e.g. the choice of whether to use the term "corruption" or something less incendiary like "improper influence" - counts here. Normally, "corruption" in business doesn't require outright and glaring corrupt speech; it happens every day in the straight world through hints, innuendo, coded communications, etc., habit and long predating tradition, even improper traditions that are built into the institutional relationships between commerce & commerce, commerce & govermment institutions (e.g. lobbyists in Congress), etc.
I really didn't mean to ask that abstract a question. You did answer basically the question I had in mind. Thanks for taking the time.
I think you made good points in ur last post as well. I dont mind chatting when people have decent questions and thought out responses. Thank you for getting me thinkin. Bias is really is hard to put a finger on in sports, so many variable's could be involved all the way to god awefull racism at times. Hughes had the bigger name in the fight, so I think thats what I meant as opposed to Verrismo being the bad guy. Public perception and name recognition.
"I'm asking in part because Cecil Peoples, for example, seems to be on EVERY UFC card, and the guy has no appreciation of ground game, or its role in MMA."What is this opinion based on?Judging and being a referee in our modern fight game is a skill that only a select few are qualified to do. Cecil Peoples is the hardest working most expereienced & knowledgable person in the business.
Judges all have their own personal bias. There's no question that certain judges have a track record of decisions that the public disagrees with. Whether it be that they intentionally or unintentionally favor certain promoter's fighters. Whether it be that they prefer pitty-pat touching more than hard, clean punches. You can look back at history, especially the names Odessa listed, and ask yourself, "How did you pick Trinidad over de la Hoya?" There are incompetent McDonald's workers, janitors, cops, teachers, factory workers, doctors, lawyers, whatever. And there are certainly incompetent fight judges. Anyone who watched Thursday night's ShoBox simply cannot argue with that statement.
And to think that there aren't judges' fixes is simply niave. Just ask the FBI.
"What is this opinion based on?"
Having seen Peoples referree for MMA matches.
Having seen him score them.
He has little or no understanding of ground fighting, and the evidence is he doesn't care to learn.
I don't care how "hard" you think Peoples "works." Effort without progress is worse than no effort at all, when it affects others lives unfairly and improperly.
He is worse than a person who knows nothing at all. He has no understanding of groundfighting, and yet is continuously put in positions that require the greatest understanding of it.
He is some kind of personal favorite of yours I guess, and apparently (because he keeps being hired to judge and ref) of some others. Good for you and those others. Bad for everybody else.
You think it is dishonorable to criticize some guy because he has a legitimate history with fighting (really, only boxing) instutions. It is not. What is dishonorable is to uphold and defend an incompetent person, when his lack of professional literacy affects the careers of others unjustly, and improperly.
"Whether it be that they intentionally or unintentionally favor certain promoter's fighters."
The frustrating thing about that is that it naturally raises the question of how it comes to be that the judges that favor the "promoter's boy" on any given card end up sitting in the judges' seats.
That's a type of question to which outsiders are probably not going to get any answers any time soon.
FCFighter said that the UFC doesn't take submissions or submission attempts into account in judging ground control.
"You think it is dishonorable to criticize some guy because he has a legitimate history with fighting (really, only boxing) instutions. It is not. What is dishonorable is to uphold and defend an incompetent person, when his lack of professional literacy affects the careers of others unjustly, and improperly."#1) You give no facts for your statement of Cecil "having no appreciation of ground game, or its role in MMA".--just your opinion--this raises the question of what credentials you have to critique Cecil.#2) I never mentioned anything about honorability--funny you do though.#3) You say Cecil "has no appreciation of ground game, or its role in MMA." and his experience is really "only with boxing" then since you seem to be so familiar with Cecil's experience & ability, I would think that you knew that he's been refereeing and judging martial arts and kickboxing for 30+ years.You want to find out the validity of your bitching??Go ask the fighters themselves, see if they concure with your analysis. Everyone in martial arts is learning and growing, and there is more to the jobs in question than just scoring points a certain way so that some 14 year old on the internet is happy. That's why there's more than one judge, everyone see's something a little different. I understand your gripe, I just think you chose a poor example and since you obviously don't know anything about Cecil Peoples and you used him to support your complaint. ...sounds like you need to gain a little more(or alot) of knowledge before you begin to evaluate people that are light years beyond you.
dbl post
I have worked with Cecil... I will admit that I did not ask if he understands the ground game and/or if he cares to learn, but in our rules meeting he expressed a great deal of thoughtfulness and asked alot of interpretive questions.
He is also working with Doc Hamilton on the REFS program (Ring Experienced Fight Specialist) which is a training seminar to teach refs and judges on the MMA game...
Doc even requested a copy of the Vazquez/Emerson fight as an example-bout for their training video on judging. It was the perfect bout to show how a passive guy, who thwarts the offensive advances of the other fighter, can win over an uneducated judge because he looks to be in "control"... Dalby Shirley scored that bout for Emerson (wrongly) while Cecil and Tony Weeks scored it 29-28 for Vazquez... I would say that Cecil did a fair job of seeing the grappling in that one.
Not to mention, Cecil was right there to stop the bout when Sam Morgan slapped an armbar on Aaron Riley. He saw it coming, and got into position to see the tap out (no one else saw it, and we had to check with Aaron to make sure he did tap - which he did).
Cecil, Doc, Steve Mazagotti, and Mark Sawicki are the best officials that I have worked with...