The MMA thread

Luke Thomas has it right on his post-show. If you can score a fight 49-46 Holloway or 48-47 Volkanovski, and both scores have merit, then there is something seriously wrong with the way they score fights.

It needs a serious overhaul.

What would you suggest?
 
Except he didn't "clearly" won 3 rounds, cmon

At the end of the fight, i really had no idea whose hand was about to get raised and the latin america ESPN pundits (2 UFC fighters and a fight sports journalist) where divided in their picks. I actually thought max could get the edge but i accept that it was a really really close fight
Dana seems to say Max was robbed and even claims there has been some bad judging then asks the reporters room if any of them had volkanovski winning and not a single one said yes.
Given these guys probably have a better understanding of fighting than the judges and commission I’d probably go with them. Watching it back myself still say Max was robbed. Dana seemed to indicate they’ll run it back.
 
Edwards wouldn’t be favored over Masvidal imo. Give both of them proper training camps and you would see a proper fight.

Jorge only had a week or so to prepare, drop a ridiculous amount of weight, travel half way around the world into a sauna, do loads of media appearances etc. and yet still managed a respectable performance against Usman. And despite the narrative that Masvidal “never stopped preparing for Usman” in the off chance that Burns may have had to cancel, there’s still nothing like a proper 6-8 week camp imo.

Kamaru likewise, fought as well as he could have given that he didn’t prepare for Masvidal until a week out. His strong ground game will make it next to imposition beat him, since most great strikers will now be more focused on defending take down his striking.

The commentary is always so weird on this. Rogan has said it in the past and Bisping said it last night where less camp = less damage from sparring, less fatigue etc. Then when the fighter with the shorter camp ends up losing or getting beat they change their tune and use the camp as the reason. Weird

I would think the fight vs Colby bought him some serious grace in terms of the bookings/selling. stood and banged and it was a hell of a fight which kinda made me want to watch this.

His other fights like his one against Woodley I have no interest whatsoever in watching. Would rather watch paint dry.

As for Masvidal I do think he is a bit of a hype beast and agree he’d most likely lose frequently against all the top guys 9 out of 10 times. However he is still capable of catching someone at any moment. Till was beating him till 1 sloppy moment and looked comfortable through out. Askren it’s just a lucky hit really, Nate is always going to stand and trade and is pretty much tailor made for someone like Masvidal. If he’d smashed Edwards, Colby, Burns Wonderboy and so on then yeah sure.

Till is the only competitive person of any note he’s beaten On his 3 match run to the title.

I think with Colby fight Usman didn't think Colby could hurt him on the feet hence he could stand with him, Masvidal clearly could and that's why we got what we got.

I think Dana will get tired of Usman pretty quickly, his fights are on the whole awful to watch and it is similar to Woodley where they can use their strength to maintain position and whilst winning rounds do little else really. Bisping made the point last night that being champion is the most important thing and whilst I understand the logic you equally want to be providing entertaining fights, people pay to be entertained the realityu is no one is that arsed enough to pay to watch a fighter just cos they're champ. Woodley is the prime example of that, he was always the bridesmaid on the big card:

Conor vs Alvarez - In fairness to him they got fight of the night on that and then headlined the 209 card which was one of the worst fights I've seen. 214 he fought co-main as Jones vs. DC was main, headlined 228 with TIll and it did awful numbers, 235 he was co-main behind Jones again.

I appreciate Usman winning was perfectly legit and he didn't do any rule breaking etc but his style is just terrible to watch, like has been said in this thread by @Dirty Schwein above and I'm sure others as well he can't go out giving all this trash talk then deliver what he did tonight.
 
Looking forward to watching Prochazka fight again. His style was bizarre, spent most of his time looking anywhere but at Volkan, then caught him with a pretty brutal KO!
 
What would you suggest?

That is an issue, a big issue. I just agree with him on the fact that a scoring system that could provide that much variation is obviously flawed.

I think what he said about a more wholistic approach and judging the fight as a whole has merit.

Its a tough question, but that doesn’t mean that there shouldnt be discussions on how it could be improved.
 
What would you suggest?
What about a system where they have a panel of 10+ judges. It's unlikely then that the one token anomaly score will feck up the entire decision.

With that said, it's MMA, the judges would find a way to feck that up too.
 
What about a system where they have a panel of 10+ judges. It's unlikely then that the one token anomaly score will feck up the entire decision.

With that said, it's MMA, the judges would find a way to feck that up too.

Would cost to much money surely?

I think with any sport or competition with judges there's always going to be a degree of controversy unfortunately. I agree MMA judging isn't great though.

Equally I don't think it was some massive robbery either, I had it 3-2 Holloway but the 3rd was close (with Max winning 1&2 and Volk winning 4&5.) I just hope we don't get a 3rd straight away. They've both been good fights but there's other contenders out there as well.
 
I do think we need to sort out the holding against the fence. If there isnt a change of postion in x amount of time then reset or something.
I respect Usman etc but there were times he was blatantly just holding Masvidal there with foot stomps to disguise inactivity.
 
I thought Max won but I wouldn’t say he was robbed. I’d say GGG was robbed against Canelo. First fight he won and second was a draw to my mind.
 
I thought Max won but I wouldn’t say he was robbed. I’d say GGG was robbed against Canelo. First fight he won and second was a draw to my mind.

When literally no one thinks the guy who won, actually won, then that's a problem.
 
When literally no one thinks the guy who won, actually won, then that's a problem.
Like everyone already said that he clearly won 1&2 and I’d say 3 but whether judges gave the benefit of the doubt to Volk cause he’s the champ or what I don’t know. Could Max have done more? Probably.
 
People need to watch the fights without the influence of the biased commentators.

It's usually Rogan the one that annoys the most, but the other night Bisping wasn't any better.

EcwjgSmWoAAxni1
 
People need to watch the fights without the influence of the biased commentators.

It's usually Rogan the one that annoys the most, but the other night Bisping wasn't any better.

EcwjgSmWoAAxni1

Agree re commentary.

Max is also a popular fighter so people get more outraged and say it was a robbery. The 3rd round decided it and was really close but people were making out every round was a 10-8 Max!
 
Agree re commentary.

Max is also a popular fighter so people get more outraged and say it was a robbery. The 3rd round decided it and was really close but people were making out every round was a 10-8 Max!
I could see it either way to be honest. But it's hard to say the one walking out the champ got dropped twice and didn't really hurt the challenger and got a few take downs that led to nothing.
 
Except he didn't "clearly" won 3 rounds, cmon

At the end of the fight, i really had no idea whose hand was about to get raised and the latin america ESPN pundits (2 UFC fighters and a fight sports journalist) where divided in their picks. I actually thought max could get the edge but i accept that it was a really really close fight

He did for me and many others.
 
I could see it either way to be honest. But it's hard to say the one walking out the champ got dropped twice and didn't really hurt the challenger and got a few take downs that led to nothing.

True, no disagreement from me. I did think Max won, just don't think it was a robbery just a pretty close fight. It's like when people called Cejudo vs. DJ a robbery, it was clearly 2-2 in rounds and there was 1 close one.

He did for me and many others.

The general opinion is it was 2-2 and Max edged the third, I don't think anyone is saying he clearly won it. Even Bisping on commentary who was pretty biased towards him said the 3rd was close during the fight.
 
The general opinion is it was 2-2 and Max edged the third, I don't think anyone is saying he clearly won it. Even Bisping on commentary who was pretty biased towards him said the 3rd was close during the fight.

Clearly won it as in the majority of people, me included think he won the 3rd and was 3 rounds up going into the 4th. I'm not saying it was a 10-8 round or that he dominated Volkanovski or anything, just that he won it. Volkanovski didn't do enough for me to have edged the 3rd.

My original comment was in my opinion Max won the first 3 of the 5 rounds, i stand by that statement.
 
Clearly won it as in the majority of people, me included think he won the 3rd and was 3 rounds up going into the 4th. I'm not saying it was a 10-8 round or that he dominated Volkanovski or anything, just that he won it. Volkanovski didn't do enough for me to have edged the 3rd.

My original comment was in my opinion Max won the first 3 of the 5 rounds, i stand by that statement.

I thought he was 3 up going into thr 4th too. He clearly eased up a little, protecting a lead, however unwise given the 10 point system. Hard to fault him though as it seemed in control through to the end. To lose because of a few shots here and there in rounds which were essentially equal is a tragedy.

Lesson: cannot sit on a lead and risk 10-10 rounds be scored for your opponent. Live transparent scoring might solve that.
 
Elliott vs Benoit tomorrow has to be one of the worst co mains on paper in ages :lol:
 
Clearly won it as in the majority of people, me included think he won the 3rd and was 3 rounds up going into the 4th. I'm not saying it was a 10-8 round or that he dominated Volkanovski or anything, just that he won it. Volkanovski didn't do enough for me to have edged the 3rd.

My original comment was in my opinion Max won the first 3 of the 5 rounds, i stand by that statement.

Fair enough, I'd thought clearly won meant there's an obvious winner, whilst most people had Max there does seem to be doubt (hence Volk is still champion) so I wouldn't say it's that clear, each to their own though.

Its a bizarre event - incredibly weak card and held midweek as well.

Main event has potential to be really good I think. Can't remember Kattar being in many bad fights.
 
UFC on a work night. Bah

But working from home means I can watch It whilst working in the morning. Yah
 
UFC on a work night. Bah

But working from home means I can watch It whilst working in the morning. Yah

Bizarre to have such an anonymous minnow filled event at midweek, especially given that everyone spent time watching the big event on Sat.
 
I'm like 99% certain that's not the real Ariel... and the last tweet from that page is saying Holloway was out of the fight last weekend.