How Fights SHOULD Be Scored (A Violence Perspective)

[TheMMAnalyst]

I know, cuz I didn’t.

And yet here you are, posting yet again...

 

[Banana Tree's Nemesis]

I appreciate the time you put into this, but I quite frankly disagree with most of it.
Not because I don't agree on the problem with judging, but because I doubt the effectiveness of your proposed solution.
There are 3 main issues I have with doing One-round fights with damage as only criterium.

1) Cardio. What you're suggesting to be a solution to get rid of point fighting will achieve the exact opposite. Even entertaining fighters will become point fighters because they have to be extremely considerate with their output. Getting exhausted in the fight is the worst thing that can happen to a fighter. Taking the breaks away from them will decrease output and willingness to engage significantly. Especially high energy maneuvers like hard kicks and shooting for takedowns will be utilized much less. Goodbye 1 minute knockout and hello 25 minute wall and stall.

2) What is damage? The question seems trivial, but it's actually pretty damn hard to judge what does damage and what doesn't. Of course it's possible to a degree. It works fine for kickboxing fights. But this also turns on the premise of reducing point fighting. The typical techniques used in point fighting are the ones that result in the best visible damage. Jabs are the most effective weapon to bust up an opponents face, especially the nose. Accumulated leg kicks lead to limping opponents. Meanwhile hooks leave much less visible marks and body kicks can be but aren't always very visible. Jabs and leg kicks would be utiilized much more than they are now.

3) Recency bias in scoring. As I said, evaluating dealt damage is not trivial. Because not every 'damage' leaves a visible mark. The majority of damage doesn't leave any clearly visible marks.
Since there don't have to be visual clues for a judge to score early in the fight, the later moments will be scored much higher versus the early ones.
That may very well be the case unanimously, but it will be a fault at applying the criteria nevertheless.

 

[Yep]

And yet here you are, posting yet again...

So you believe I read that? There’s no requirement to post. You just hit the little reply option.

 

[TheMMAnalyst]

Let's say you have someone take someone down fairly early in a round. At first they are stuck in guard without much ground and pound, however, the top guy eats an elbow that produces a cut. After that, he methodically passes to half and then to side. He eventually gets mount, but the guy on bottom is bucking and guarding preventing much damage. Eventually, he's forced to give up his back as the guy on top is going for a RNC. As we've seen, this can take time and the guy defending is pretty solid. The round ends with the RNC being defended. Guy on bottom wins due to damage? That'd be total bullshit.

Stop and think about this - if the rules were different, why would the guy on top be working to methodically pass guard and get control positions when he knows damage is what is being scored? The only reason would be to make the decision that you want to control/tire out your opponent early and can damage/finish them late. Which is fine, but you have to know if you don't damage/finish them late you won't win.

Instead of showing you are "winning" by controlling your opponent (limiting the chance of you receiving or causing damage), you need to show you are "winning" by using those positions to do significant damage.

Now you put the onus on fighters to make a "gambit" of it - is it worth it to slowly work through someones guard to get a dominant position if you aren't doing much damage? It is if you can get to a good position and then do damage or submit them, but if you are too slow/methodical and the round ends it just shows that you failed to conceptually grasp how the fight is being scored/interpreted.

So in your scenario the guy on top working to pass guard would get cut and realize "oh shit, I just got damaged - do I want to try and control/gas this guy now so I can beat him up later or do I want to try and get the damage back now?"

What we don't want is scenarios that we have nowadays - two guys fighting, one clearly winning the stand-up, then the other guy gets a takedown and makes sure he doesn't get up but neither guy does any damage so guy on top wins (Usman's brother vs. Tafa's brother fight comes to mind recently....terrible fight though).

 

[Ozze]

Damage is already the main criteria of fighting. The other ones are just to be used should damage be equal from both parts.

It's just called "effective striking/grappling".

 

[TheMMAnalyst]

Doesn't really work. The best way to see who's done more damage over the course of a fight is to look at the final round only. Earlier damage that doesn't show in final round performance is superficial damage for the purposes of judging a fight as a whole, and earlier non-obvious damage (e.g. how much are body shots and leg kicks really damaging the opponent) does show up in final round performance.

Damage is conceptual - I don't think late damage trumps early damage (i.e. getting jabbed in the face early in a fight or late), it's all about the quality of the damage.

That's literally what judging is - asking someone to give a subjective interpretation of something that is difficult to perceive and understand.

Instead of asking judges to try and weight the value of control versus damage we can just simplify the concept for everyone so at least we are on the same page.

As I said in my OP, this is about getting everyone on the same page to produce better quality fights - we'll still have bad judges and bad decisions, but I can guarantee the fights would be significantly better on average from an entertainment/violence point of view.

 

[TheMMAnalyst]

Wanted to point out that offense in tennis isn’t really cumulative. The scoring is almost exactly like mma just games instead of rounds.

Rest of the thread is nonsense. We already use damage as the primary scoring tool. Why would scoring it based on violence solve any issues with judging. The problem isn’t that we don’t have a good gauge for who won a fight. It’s that the judges don’t appear to apply that gauge correctly

I mean it kind of is cumulative though - in MMA you get 3-5 rounds and they always score rounds 10-9 so there is a very limited about of potential scores (30-27, 29-28).

In tennis there are points/games/sets and it's scored in momentary exchanges punctuated by breaks; there are hundreds of potentially shorelines and that doesn't even take into account how the games are won....but yeah I guess Basketball/Football/Soccer/Hockey are better parallels.

I think you misunderstand me or didn't read the thread - where did I say scoring it based on violence?

I said:

A) Score fights in their entirety
B) The only thing that scores is damage

The problem is the rounds make it possible to game the system and be "winning" a fight without out-damaging your opponent in any significant way.

The problem with not scoring cumulative damage is it makes it impossible to come back in a fight you are "losing" by a perceptive metric.

The judges will always suck no matter the criteria, that's the point of this thread - by changing the rules it doesn't necessarily mean judges will be better or give better decisions (because they are always corrupt and stupid), it just means the fighters will put on better fights because they have a more clear understanding of what they need to be doing to be "winning."

 

[GBJohn]

So, basically what you’re saying is that you want to almost completely eliminate the submission grappling aspect of MMA? Because that’s what would happen. Under your system, completely out grappling your opponent would count for nothing if you don’t actually get the submission. If he lands two jabs before being taken down and spending the rest of the round defending subs, he would win based on damage.
Granted, ground-and-pound would still be a viable strategy, but I would miss some of the grappling we see now.
The root problem with MMA judging (or any sport involving judges, really) is that, no matter how you define your criteria, the end result will always be subjective.

 

[TheMMAnalyst]

That just moves the criteria to another subjective realm. Damage is a tricky thing to evaluate - people have different complexions, skin elasticity, etc. and wear damage differently. GSP looked like he was dragged through a cornfield by a horse after dominant wins, Penn could look totally fine after absorbing huge amounts of damage.

And that's just the face - body shots would also be judged according to damage im sure, how do we compare two body blows?

Another take on this - the issue of knockouts. You made many comparisons to other sports, but there aren't any sports I can think of where, by design, each side is trying to disable their opponent in order to win and in a sense, "damage" is a really a measure of how effective a fighter is in trying to attain that goal. But, the damage that one figher can sustain before being stopped can be wildly different than the damage required for another fighter, so that's a tricky one to accomodate, too. A proper scoring system would have to take into account all of these factors and somehow render a judgement.

Judging is inherently subjective - what do you think it means to "judge" something?

Nowhere did I say "visual damage" I just said damage - it's impossible to have a consistent metric gauge for any element of MMA, everyone is operating off of what they receive to be the hardest/cleanest shots landed.

A punch that cuts someone might be glancing, a ruthless body kick might get eaten and "no-sold" because the opponent is so tough, leg kicks vs. body shots vs. head shots - what's better? These are all the types of impossible to answer questions judges present. Even more a guy can land a bunch and his opponent eats it all and then lands a single punch that rocks him - who is winning? Impossible to say for certain, too many variables.

This change is not going to necessarily fix the judging problem because it's an unfixable problem in that regard. MMA is far too complicated to understand and score in real-time without there being huge areas of perceptive differences in interpreting a fight.

What this is going to fix is the fighter's approach to a fight - they won't be trying to win rounds, they'll be trying to do more damage than their opponent. This will lead to less stalling/control/point-fighting tactics, which leads to better fights.

 

[TheMMAnalyst]

Boxing, kickboxing, and grappling all have rounds which sort of invalidates your argument.

Boxing = 12 rounds, only scoring punches to the body-head with limited striking (no hammerfists/spinning backlists)

Kickboxing = 5 rounds, only scoring kicks and punches with limited striking (no elbows, limited clinch rules)

Grappling = 1 round, submission only goes to judges decision or IBJJF rules gives point for control positions and takedowns (judges decision if tied).

These are all single-discipline combat sports that don't ask you to gauge the quality of every type of strike in every single position while also taking into account the value of grappling and control.

Just because that criteria works well for those combat sports doesn't mean it automatically works for MMA, which is using the boxing 10-9 must system, which was designed for 12-round "punching with big gloves only" fights, not 3-5 round "every allowed combat technique" fights.

 

[World eater]

Nice effort TS. You will get ridiculed for it, but not a bad read.

 

[TheMMAnalyst]

There’s an X factor in all fights that should be easier to score than it is. Pride got kind of close as a criteria.

But “trying hardest to win the fight” should count for more. I sounds as stupid as it looks on the page. But I think this is what Nick Diaz was complaining about a lot of the time.

It's a cool concept to be sure, but I never really thought it was valid.

How does coming on strong at the end have more value than having a great start? If you get your ass beat so bad your opponent gasses and now you can take over late and beat him up, it's not inherently of more value.

What's of value is the actual work - if your opponent slightly out-works you on a "per round" basis but in the last round you just blow them out of the water you should win the fight based on the total cumulative work you did, not because it happened late.

It doesn't seem right that you can beat someone up for most of the fight but because they had a great last minute or even round that they win if they don't do more work then you in totality.

 

[HHJ]

Tl/Dr all fight sports have corruption and incompetent judges,also lol @comparing full contact fighting to team sports.

 

[mjfan23]

TLDR version: just bleed god to score all fights

 

[TheMMAnalyst]

So, basically what you’re saying is that you want to almost completely eliminate the submission grappling aspect of MMA? Because that’s what would happen. Under your system, completely out grappling your opponent would count for nothing if you don’t actually get the submission. If he lands two jabs before being taken down and spending the rest of the round defending subs, he would win based on damage.
Granted, ground-and-pound would still be a viable strategy, but I would miss some of the grappling we see now.
The root problem with MMA judging (or any sport involving judges, really) is that, no matter how you define your criteria, the end result will always be subjective.

I want to eliminate scoring control for the purpose of putting on a more entertaining "violent spectacle."

I love grappling and don't think this would eliminate submission grappling, it would just refine the approach - there is little value in employing submission grappling in a "violent spectacle" unless it leads violence.

If you get to dominant grappling positions (mount/side-control/back-control) but can't do damage from them then how dominant are they? If you can control your opponent without damaging them how "in-control" are you actually in a fight-context?

In my system if an opponent jabs you and you take him down you now have the entirety of the rest of the round to make up for that damage. Why are we rewarding you for getting a takedown where you hold your opponent for 50%+ of a round and can't do more damage then the few jabs they landed prior to the takedown? It means your submission grappling as an offensive threat in a fight is dog-shit, as it should be a means to open up opportunities to hurt your opponent.

Of course certain submissions cause damage (armbars/leglocks/etc.), but chokes typically don't unless they get a finish. So maybe some fighters wouldn't go for chokes as often, but if you were a submission grappler you'd still want to because it can lead to an immediate win.

The only thing this affects is fighters knowing they can't win rounds based on control, they need to be working to do damage or they can take a "gambit" approach by going for submissions only (knowing it's high-risk, high-reward).

MMA judges will always be bad to a degree, but by fixing the scoring criteria it will give the fighters more agency in how they approach the fight, leading to more violent/entertaining spectacles.

 

[TheMMAnalyst]

Tl/Dr all fight sports have corruption and incompetent judges,also lol @comparing full contact fighting to team sports.

I was comparing how in other sports they let you "build a lead" through cumulative offense.

In MMA you beat a man half to death 95% of the time you are ahead by one point. He lays on top of you for 50% of the next round, you guys are tied.

Interesting scoring system is all I'm saying....

 

[HHJ]

I was comparing how in other sports they let you "build a lead" through cumulative offense.

In MMA you beat a man half to death 95% of the time you are ahead by one point. He lays on top of you for 50% of the next round, you guys are tied.

Interesting scoring system is all I'm saying....

They should probably learn to wrestle

 

[TheMMAnalyst]

They should probably learn to wrestle

So you like when fighters "game the system" by using control to stall out their opponent?

If we wanted "authentic combat" we'd have 2 fighters in a huge open room, no walls/cage/ring, no gloves, no rules, submission/KO's only - that actually doesn't lead to entertaining fights though.

What we actually want is "entertaining fights" so it would seem we should have the judging criteria set to reward and encourage that.

That doesn't mean wrestling doesn't work in fights and isn't entertaining, but wrestling as a martial art is a "control-based" martial art. It lets you put your opponents in positions where you have more control over their body than they do of yours, which means you should hypothetically be in a dominant position.

If you can't damage someone from a dominant position in a fight, then it kind of shows that the martial arts techniques you are employing aren't really that effective in a "combat sports as a violent spectacle" context but they work great in a "self-defense" context.

 

[Bearknuckle]

Whats the point of having rounds when the fight is judged as a whole, just let then fight 15 straight minutes. Stallers get reset more often. No need for rounds.

 

[TheMMAnalyst]

I appreciate the time you put into this, but I quite frankly disagree with most of it.
Not because I don't agree on the problem with judging, but because I doubt the effectiveness of your proposed solution.
There are 3 main issues I have with doing One-round fights with damage as only criterium.

1) Cardio. What you're suggesting to be a solution to get rid of point fighting will achieve the exact opposite. Even entertaining fighters will become point fighters because they have to be extremely considerate with their output. Getting exhausted in the fight is the worst thing that can happen to a fighter. Taking the breaks away from them will decrease output and willingness to engage significantly. Especially high energy maneuvers like hard kicks and shooting for takedowns will be utilized much less. Goodbye 1 minute knockout and hello 25 minute wall and stall.

2) What is damage? The question seems trivial, but it's actually pretty damn hard to judge what does damage and what doesn't. Of course it's possible to a degree. It works fine for kickboxing fights. But this also turns on the premise of reducing point fighting. The typical techniques used in point fighting are the ones that result in the best visible damage. Jabs are the most effective weapon to bust up an opponents face, especially the nose. Accumulated leg kicks lead to limping opponents. Meanwhile hooks leave much less visible marks and body kicks can be but aren't always very visible. Jabs and leg kicks would be utiilized much more than they are now.

3) Recency bias in scoring. As I said, evaluating dealt damage is not trivial. Because not every 'damage' leaves a visible mark. The majority of damage doesn't leave any clearly visible marks.
Since there don't have to be visual clues for a judge to score early in the fight, the later moments will be scored much higher versus the early ones.
That may very well be the case unanimously, but it will be a fault at applying the criteria nevertheless.

Sorry I missed your post but wanted to respond to everyone that actively engaged.

I never said "one round fights" I said "score fights in their entirety" - I still want to keep rounds to give fighters breaks to recover their cardio, get cuts worked on, get corner advice, etc.

It's about creating a better violent spectacle from an entertainment stand-point, that's the driving foundation of what makes MMA a sport - if it wasn't entertaining, we wouldn't watch it, so we should be thinking about "how can we make it more entertaining consistently?"

I will re-iterate this again; the judges will always be bad, even if we change the criteria to what I suggest it doesn't mean they won't be "wrong" and give bad decisions or continue to see things vastly differently then one and other.

What it does mean is fighters will be actively encouraged to hurt their opponent, instead of exploiting self-defense tactics of control to limit the damage their opponent can do to them.

At least everyone will understand what they are trying to do out there, which I'm confident will lead to better fights more consistently.