How Fights SHOULD Be Scored (A Violence Perspective)

[HHJ]

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.

Wrestling is the strongest



Go to kickboxing If you can't take the heat

 

[TheMMAnalyst]

Wrestling is the strongest



Go to kickboxing If you can't take the heat

 

[HeffDoesWant]

Total fight scoring based solely on who the judges think feels better at the end???



But really the only issue I think worth addressing is that effectively drawn rounds with an uncertain winner (10-9) carry as much weight as everything but a complete arse kicking with no questions as to who won (9-10)


Machida shogun, gsp Hendricks etc and almost all results called robberies suffer from this problem. Usually the judges did fine in those fights, the scoring system is what failed.

 

[HuskySamoan]

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.

And the judges suqk, if we had qualified and accountable judges we probably wouldn't even be having these conversations.

 

[Banana Tree's Nemesis]

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.

So I hope I'm picking this up correctly, but from what I understand, your point is that a fight should be essentially scored the way that it would most likely end if it continued.
And you find that some guys exploit the system of having rounds scored individually by being inactive and stealing rounds late.

I've actually waited for an opportunity to drop this and this seems like a good time and place. I've recently come acroos two studies that researched judging in MMA. (specifically the UFC)
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1038/s41598-022-19044-4
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0443#d1e377
The read is a bit of a hassle, but in short, the correlation between scores and likelihood of a finish was very high. So the fight metrics that would indicate a high probability of winning by finish would also indicate a high probability of winning by decision. In other words judges do score fights on average the way that they would eventually end by finish if they continued. In detail that is true for 'vigour' and 'skill' metrics in both striking and grappling.

That invalidates pretty much the argument that 'aggressive grappling' isn't finish orientated. Aggressive grappling is finish orientated and grappling that isn't aggressive enough won't get scored as such by the judges. Of course only on average.

Regarding more interesting fights I don't really know what to say. If grappling is considered less interesting than striking, then maybe switching back to kickboxing is the solution.

What I support greatly is making the rules more 'user-friendly'. They are as important for the fighters as they are for the judges. Since there are more than a few guys who don't speak english, the rules really should be simplified. Or at least suggest scores for certain scenarios. Fighters need to know how they need to fight to win.

 

[Trabaho]

Overal fight scoring is vague and even worese then round by round.

Damage should be #1 criteria by far, probably already is.

 

[aerius]

So basically, the ONE Championship scoring system. Which I agree is far better than the dog shit we have in the UFC.

 

[Quietus]

Easier fix is just make any close round 10-10, rather than flipping a coin on feelz. Then it’s 10-9 when one guy has noticeably more success and 10-8 when it’s a brutal one sided beat down. There would be more draws but a lot less robberies and less angry fans when their guy loses a judges coin toss in a close fight. It’s asinine to say two guys can have a great, razor close fight but one guy has to take a loss by default. Total garbage scoring system we currently have.

 

[TheMMAnalyst]

So I hope I'm picking this up correctly, but from what I understand, your point is that a fight should be essentially scored the way that it would most likely end if it continued.
And you find that some guys exploit the system of having rounds scored individually by being inactive and stealing rounds late.

I've actually waited for an opportunity to drop this and this seems like a good time and place. I've recently come acroos two studies that researched judging in MMA. (specifically the UFC)
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1038/s41598-022-19044-4
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0443#d1e377
The read is a bit of a hassle, but in short, the correlation between scores and likelihood of a finish was very high. So the fight metrics that would indicate a high probability of winning by finish would also indicate a high probability of winning by decision. In other words judges do score fights on average the way that they would eventually end by finish if they continued. In detail that is true for 'vigour' and 'skill' metrics in both striking and grappling.

That invalidates pretty much the argument that 'aggressive grappling' isn't finish orientated. Aggressive grappling is finish orientated and grappling that isn't aggressive enough won't get scored as such by the judges. Of course only on average.

Regarding more interesting fights I don't really know what to say. If grappling is considered less interesting than striking, then maybe switching back to kickboxing is the solution.

What I support greatly is making the rules more 'user-friendly'. They are as important for the fighters as they are for the judges. Since there are more than a few guys who don't speak english, the rules really should be simplified. Or at least suggest scores for certain scenarios. Fighters need to know how they need to fight to win.

your point is that a fight should be essentially scored the way that it would most likely end if it continued

No that's not it - the end of the fight is the same as the beginning of the fight, since it's an "entertainment spectacle" the fighters operate knowing there are time limits. So this idea of "who would have won if the fight kept going?" is stupid, because at the start of the fight both fighters know exactly the time-constraints they are operating under.

To me it's about "cumulative damage" i.e. who does more total damage comparatively - as I've noted, damage is perceptive and judges will always score differently, the point is to give the fighters a clear narrative path to victory to follow so they aren't "guessing" what wins round, they are just trying to do more damage to their opponent then they receive.

This doesn't mean it's a "just bleed god" creed - you can still fight smart, just with the knowledge that by scoring the fight entirely and putting the emphasis on damage it will eliminate tactics that "bank rounds" because those tactics are antithetical to fighting. It doesn't mean you still can't use them though - you can totally take down someone and negate them from doing anything, but it's just with the knowledge that if you are only controlling them and not submitting them you don't have a big lead.

Thanks for sharing those articles, I'll give them a read-through when I have some time later tonight.

To me "aggressive grappling" is beating up your opponent while you control them - if you are just doing to Volk what Islam did in the 4th, are you "aggressively grappling" or are you just killing time in a control position because your opponent can't get out since all you are doing is controlling them and not trying to hurt them?

I'm a huge grappling head and love grappling in fighting, it's just since submission defense has gotten so much better guys on bottom don't take many chances and guys on top just focus on control more accordingly. By placing an emphasis on damage it will encourage submission fighters to use strikes in grappling positions to do damage, create scrambles, open-up submissions, etc. It changes the meta of the modern fight-game in that those with wrestling/grappling heavy styles typically utilize the control aspect of that art to negate opponent's offense until time expires. But stopping your opponent from hurting you isn't the same thing as hurting them, that's really kind of the point.

I'm just proposing a theoretical concept to help fighters have a better framework to engage in a fight under - it will benefit them (they know what they need to do more clearly - hurt each other) and it will benefit the fans, since the fights will be more violent/aggressive and we'll have a better understanding of who should be "winning' under a clear focus on damage as the only metric worth judging.

 

[TheMMAnalyst]

So basically, the ONE Championship scoring system. Which I agree is far better than the dog shit we have in the UFC.

While I do prefer ONE's system I'd rather just simplify it even further to a single tangible metric that everyone whose seen a fight has a conceptual understanding of.

Just as with everything being "judged" we will all see things differently, but at least then we are judging the same thing (damage) instead of trying to judge a multitude of criteria on a sliding scale in some progressive order.

 

[TheMMAnalyst]

Easier fix is just make any close round 10-10, rather than flipping a coin on feelz. Then it’s 10-9 when one guy has noticeably more success and 10-8 when it’s a brutal one sided beat down. There would be more draws but a lot less robberies and less angry fans when their guy loses a judges coin toss in a close fight. It’s asinine to say two guys can have a great, razor close fight but one guy has to take a loss by default. Total garbage scoring system we currently have.

I proposed a system once where it would be a "1 point must system up to 5" where you would give a fighter a score for a round based on the perceived dominance of the round:

0-0 = no discernable advantage
1-0 = slightest of advantages
2-0 = moderate advantage
3-0 = clear advantage
4-0 = dominant advantage
5-0 = very dominant advantage

I think it would be far better then what we have, it's just now we are asking judges to not only judge who won the round but gauge on a wider spectrum how dominantly they won the round.

I'd actually prefer it like this because the scoring perceptions would be all over the place and would lead to a ton of different scores - let's look at Volk/Islam as an example:

RD 4 - Judges likely score this round 1-0 or 2-0 for Islam
RD 5 - Judges likely score this round 3-0 or 4-0 for Volk

Instead these rounds are considered a tie (10-9 each fighter), though in one round Islam held Volk's back for 3 minutes without landing any damage and in the other round Volk knocked down Islam and landed a dozen unanswered GnP shots.

But I'd still rather just eliminate the rounds, because the only reason we have fighters take breaks is to get their cardio back, treat cuts, give advice = all stuff to keep the fight entertaining. There is no actual need to score the rounds, you just consider them breaks to keep the fight more entertaining, but it doesn't need to be broken up into segmented chunks by default.

 

[Myrddin Wild]

Damage...

...is already the key component of the new judging criteria.

Whole fight... is questionable if the power puncher rocks his guy in round one & then stallz & hidez for the rest of the 5 roundz while getting dominated for the rest of the fight.

Teh judges are already confused enough with the round by round system. This will just confuse them further... and also allow someone to manipulate those roolz just as people manipulate teh current round by round roolz.

 

[corrupted]

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.

Yes, totally. I meant they had something of the right idea, but it was terribly missed in some fights for sure. I remember a fight where Alex Striebling was fighting someone and was piecing them up but took a Hail Mary shot near the end and because he was almost finished he lost the fight, as you said, just getting caught near the end isn’t a fair reason to lose the fight. But if you are on the front foot swinging for the fences and your opponent is back peddling after a good start, it should in some way be a criteria that is taken in to account I think

 

[Eric Silva 2.0]

Over the years I've gone down the rabbit hole of exploring different ways to score fights to see if there is a better way.

I've tried using different models that have been proposed before: half-point system, wider scoring system (i.e. 0-5 points per round) to see if they combat the issues with the current UFC model i.e. Non-cumulative scoring (round-system), 10-9 system (limited point values), highly confusing scoring language.

Though these scoring models do offer improvements in having a better conceptual perspective on who won a fight, they ultimately succeed and fail based on the merits of the judges. Unfortunately, in a sport as corrupt and incompetent as MMA, the judges are mostly absolute terrible so it doesn't matter what scoring system you give them - they will figure out a way to fuck it up!

That made me realize that the scoring from the judges end will always have problems, no matter the updated solution. However, what changing the scoring can do is give the fighters a more clear-cut conceptual understanding of what they are trying to accomplish and whether or not they are actually winning.

The solution is actually pretty simple and has been proposed before by many:

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

A - We need to score fights in their entirety, the round system is built to be exploited by point-fighters/control-fighters. In every other sport offensive is cumulative i.e. Baseball/Football/Soccer/Basketball/Hockey/Tennis you add up the score in all the quarters/periods/innings to get a sum total of the offense.

You don't give a team credit for winning the most quarters/periods/innings because it completely eliminates the the value of significant offense. Whether I beat you by a little or beat you by a lot, in MMA 99% of the time the score is always the same (10-9). You can only go up by 1 pt no matter how much you outland your opponent in damage. Imagine if in a football game you scored 3 touchdowns in the first quarter but your opponent scored a field goal in the second quarter - should it be a tie game at halftime?

By removing the rounds it eliminates the ability for fighters to "build a lead" that isn't based on doing significantly more damage then their opponent - it doesn't matter if you successfully stall your opponent (or slightly out-damage them) for 80% of the fight if they beat the piss out of you for the last 20% of the fight.

B - We don't need to score anything except damage; control is a means to do damage in a fight, if not it's a stalling/self-defense tactic that doesn't have a place in "fight entertainment" where the point is to put on a violent spectacle to highlight the effectiveness of offensive martial arts in combat.

What this does is it actually gives the fighters more perspective and control over the fight - since both fighters know that the only thing that matters is damage they won't be trying to win rounds with overly-defensive out-fighting or try to "steal rounds" with late takedowns or stalled-out top-control.

***************************************

The fighters will now know they need to hurt their opponent more than they hurt them to win. It can always be debated whom did more damage, but it will discourage fighters looking to get takedowns and hold, push against the cage and hold, stay on the outside and feint while barely throwing anything of value.

They can still do all of this stuff and win, but they need to drastically limit their opponents offense in order to win. You could takedown and control your opponent for most of the fight, but if you aren't using that control to apply damage then what good is the control? The point of control is to give you the ability to damage your opponent - if it's just used to prevent them from damaging you the rules aren't rewarding those who are creating a "violent spectacle" it's punishing them and rewarding those who are using "self-defense" tactics.

The goal should be to simplify the understanding of what a fight "is" for everyone - the fighters, the judges, and the audience. That way we are all on the same page about what we are watching - a "violent confrontation as spectacle" where the goal is to hurt your opponent more than they hurt you.

This doesn't mean judges still can't and won't be wrong - judges will still always have issues with seeing strikes differently (based on cage position, focus, understanding of reactions) and rating strikes differently (is 3 leg kicks worth a jab to the face? Is a big hook to the body worth more than some light GnP for a minute?).

The perceptive interpretation of the violence is always going to be subjective, but at least we've streamlined the focus for everyone to what it should be about - VIOLENCE.

Jessica Andrade agrees with you.

 

[GBJohn]

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.

If what you’re after is “violent spectacle”, maybe watch BKFC?

 

[cburm]

Over the years I've gone down the rabbit hole of exploring different ways to score fights to see if there is a better way.

I've tried using different models that have been proposed before: half-point system, wider scoring system (i.e. 0-5 points per round) to see if they combat the issues with the current UFC model i.e. Non-cumulative scoring (round-system), 10-9 system (limited point values), highly confusing scoring language.

Though these scoring models do offer improvements in having a better conceptual perspective on who won a fight, they ultimately succeed and fail based on the merits of the judges. Unfortunately, in a sport as corrupt and incompetent as MMA, the judges are mostly absolute terrible so it doesn't matter what scoring system you give them - they will figure out a way to fuck it up!

That made me realize that the scoring from the judges end will always have problems, no matter the updated solution. However, what changing the scoring can do is give the fighters a more clear-cut conceptual understanding of what they are trying to accomplish and whether or not they are actually winning.

The solution is actually pretty simple and has been proposed before by many:

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

A - We need to score fights in their entirety, the round system is built to be exploited by point-fighters/control-fighters. In every other sport offensive is cumulative i.e. Baseball/Football/Soccer/Basketball/Hockey/Tennis you add up the score in all the quarters/periods/innings to get a sum total of the offense.

You don't give a team credit for winning the most quarters/periods/innings because it completely eliminates the the value of significant offense. Whether I beat you by a little or beat you by a lot, in MMA 99% of the time the score is always the same (10-9). You can only go up by 1 pt no matter how much you outland your opponent in damage. Imagine if in a football game you scored 3 touchdowns in the first quarter but your opponent scored a field goal in the second quarter - should it be a tie game at halftime?

By removing the rounds it eliminates the ability for fighters to "build a lead" that isn't based on doing significantly more damage then their opponent - it doesn't matter if you successfully stall your opponent (or slightly out-damage them) for 80% of the fight if they beat the piss out of you for the last 20% of the fight.

B - We don't need to score anything except damage; control is a means to do damage in a fight, if not it's a stalling/self-defense tactic that doesn't have a place in "fight entertainment" where the point is to put on a violent spectacle to highlight the effectiveness of offensive martial arts in combat.

What this does is it actually gives the fighters more perspective and control over the fight - since both fighters know that the only thing that matters is damage they won't be trying to win rounds with overly-defensive out-fighting or try to "steal rounds" with late takedowns or stalled-out top-control.

***************************************

The fighters will now know they need to hurt their opponent more than they hurt them to win. It can always be debated whom did more damage, but it will discourage fighters looking to get takedowns and hold, push against the cage and hold, stay on the outside and feint while barely throwing anything of value.

They can still do all of this stuff and win, but they need to drastically limit their opponents offense in order to win. You could takedown and control your opponent for most of the fight, but if you aren't using that control to apply damage then what good is the control? The point of control is to give you the ability to damage your opponent - if it's just used to prevent them from damaging you the rules aren't rewarding those who are creating a "violent spectacle" it's punishing them and rewarding those who are using "self-defense" tactics.

The goal should be to simplify the understanding of what a fight "is" for everyone - the fighters, the judges, and the audience. That way we are all on the same page about what we are watching - a "violent confrontation as spectacle" where the goal is to hurt your opponent more than they hurt you.

This doesn't mean judges still can't and won't be wrong - judges will still always have issues with seeing strikes differently (based on cage position, focus, understanding of reactions) and rating strikes differently (is 3 leg kicks worth a jab to the face? Is a big hook to the body worth more than some light GnP for a minute?).

The perceptive interpretation of the violence is always going to be subjective, but at least we've streamlined the focus for everyone to what it should be about - VIOLENCE.

Pride had the right rules for violence the ufc mma scoring is just dog shit.

You should be awarded points for defending take downs and for sub attempts on bottom and for defending them..

You should also count strikes on bottom the same as in top control to prevent stalling (problem fixed)

And control time isnt being a back pack and doing nothing that should count as submission defence if he failed a sub or did nothing.

To many times do guys just sit in a dominate positio. Were they do nothing or cant do anything that's not control the guy there on is safe and sound that's not control.. either work to a position attack or sub attempt or get up.

Problems would be fixed

 

[TheMMAnalyst]

If what you’re after is “violent spectacle”, maybe watch BKFC?

It’s called “Mixed Martial Arts” - if you can’t use striking to counter grappling what are we even doing here? Ain’t “mixing” shit.

All combat sports are inherently designed to be violent spectacle - not sure why you want to sanitize certain ones of techniques that aren’t inherently more dangerous then anything else allowed.

 

[Oblivian]

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).

To put it simple, your scoring criteria really ignores aspects of BJJ and wrestling and diminishes their value. If a guy progresses to someone's back and tries to get in a RNC, they are closer to finishing the fight than a glancing elbow that causes a superficial cut scored as "damage". They've displayed they are better at the aspects of mixed martial arts as well. If someone is going between guard, half guard, side control and landing small blows the entire round without much visible damage yet they get caught with a glancing shot that causes a cut, they lose as well?

 

[TheMMAnalyst]

To put it simple, your scoring criteria really ignores aspects of BJJ and wrestling and diminishes their value. If a guy progresses to someone's back and tries to get in a RNC, they are closer to finishing the fight than a glancing elbow that causes a superficial cut scored as "damage". They've displayed they are better at the aspects of mixed martial arts as well. If someone is going between guard, half guard, side control and landing small blows the entire round without much visible damage yet they get caught with a glancing shot that causes a cut, they lose as well?

My proposal does minimize the value of BJJ and Wrestling to a degree, but only as a means of "control," which is what I think is the most over-valued element of fighting.

Wrestling and grappling in a fight that is designed to be entertainment/spectacle should be martial arts that get you to positions to do significant damage (or in the case of pure grappling at least "threaten it" via submissions). So they are a means to an end - just taking someone down or getting past their guard is not damage, but it does give you favorable positions to be able to do significantly more damage then your opponent. They are at their core control-based martial arts and control is a means to do damage in a fight, otherwise it's just a slightly favorable stalling position if it's not being used accordingly.

Getting an RNC without a gassed/broken/low-level opponent is pretty rare in modern high-level MMA. What we typically get is a high-level grappler can get to that position (Islam or Sterling are the recent examples), but their opponent isn't gassed/hurt/bad at grappling so they never even get close to submitting them. In fact, they don't even go very hard for the submissions because they realize it's a waste of energy, so they do just enough "work" (i.e. pretend like they are going for the choke while throwing pitter-patter shots that do no damage) to keep the fight from being stood up.

I'm a grappler first and foremost and I say this from experience - if a choke doesn't finish you, it doesn't really do any damage (though there are some rare instances where it can tweak your neck or jaw). You can say it was "close to ending the fight," but if you go for a choke and don't get it all that happened was you squeezed your arms really hard to suffocate someone and it didn't work, so now your arms are tired and they are relatively undamaged. By the same logic throwing a haymaker that misses the opponent was also "close to ending the fight," but just like a choke submission if it doesn't land it doesn't do any damage. Joint-lock submissions are what we should be promoting/rewarding more highly, as they cause damage even if your opponent doesn't submit (Ferguson against Oliviera/Dariush, Phil Hawes against Roman Dolidze). They also encourage aggression and offense, which means we'll get less tactics of control and more tactics of attack.

I'm not saying "cuts are the best indicator of damage" which is something that gets brought up - how a cut is caused is more important than the cut itself (i.e. a knee to the face that splits your head open is way more damaging strike then a glancing elbow that slices your face but doesn't land hard), but cuts can later play a role in affecting your ability to see/fight so can lead to absorbing more damage later, but the cut in and of itself isn't necessarily what we should be looking to score as "damage" (in my opinion, since the cut itself is superficial, it's the strike that caused the cut we should be judging).

If you are a dominant wrestler/grappler and an opponent cuts you or hurts you with a strike before you take them down then you will have all the time they are in your preferred fighting positions to get that damage back. The problem with the current ruleset is that the guy who gets the takedown knows he doesn't actually need to do any real damage to win the round - even if he just holds from top position in guard without throwing much 90%+ of the time they will get the round from the judges (the guy on bottom would need to be absolutely destroying the guy in top to get the nod).

If we used my proposed system the wrestler/grappler knows he can't just hold in guard or work to back-control and fish for an RNC he's never going to get. You aren't displaying you are better at "fighting" by getting dominant grappling positions and doing no damage, you are displaying you are better at "self-defense" since you are just trying to limit your opponents ability to damage you more-so then you are trying to damage them.

Ask a fighter if they'd rather get beat up with brutal shots on their feet for 1 minute or get taken down and held/controlled with small weak shots for 4 minutes. If it wasn't in the context of MMA judges scoring it every single fighter would rather be controlled for long periods without eating real damage then be legitimately hurt even for very short periods of time. That's why it's a "fight" in the first place, we are trying to see who is better at hurting someone in hand-to-hand combat, not who can showcase they have a deeper mixed martial arts skillset - if that skillset doesn't lead to dominant violence then it really isn't doing us any favors as fight fans.

I do get the perspective from a "fight purist" that this changes the balance of the martial arts, but they already are highly effected in so many ways - rounds, length of rounds, gloves, limited techniques, etc. I just think the trade-off is worth it because it wouldn't eliminate those martial arts, it would just change how those that employ them would use them (as a means to do damage, since they would know that's what is being scored).

 

[mudrubble]

How fights should get scored… by like 10 different state of the art AIs completely eliminating human error, human incompetence, bias, & corruption… at least till they tamper with the AI judging computers like they’re an American election computer

And AI can do the matchmaking as well. No way a human can crunch all the factors as well as AI can. AI could also announce - fighters could choose the voice it announces in! So you like Samuel Jackson's voice? Have him introduce you! You are a Prince fan? Have him introduce you!

AI could also do better commentary than jovial but distracted Daniel, technical but arrogant small man complex Cruz, degen gambler Annik, missed-half-the-action (the right side of it) Bisping, and the rest of those flesh units.

And AI could be the cornermen as well. No more "fuck that guy, BJ" or "you're up 3-1, champ" soothing egos. All hard-hitting facts - "raise your right hook 13.5 degrees and arc it 1.5 inches wider after you roll under his straight. Step 83% as far as you are doing when advancing - that's your distance. Step an additional 27% when retreating and deviate at a 46 degree angle...." - no more general shit....

And the overhead is way lower because you don't have to pay many employees. With the savings, they could pay for hookers and blow for each fighter and other bonuses....

AI could save MMA today, and even more so tomorrow.

Where the fuck you at, ChatMMApt??