7 Ways to Fix What's Broken with Judging

4. Enlist a media ombudsman ringside.

When the job is done correctly, the role of the media is as watchdog: to keep the focus of their investigations honest by the virtue of their presence, and to chastise them when they’re behaving without integrity.

At each event, a media member should be pulled from duty at press row and placed at the judges’ table. In addition to observing their behavior, the reporter can experience the fight from their perspective, crucial when discussion comes up over “what the judges saw” or what blows/attacks had a significantly different impact than what was seen on television.

5. Determine the limits of control.

Most judging error can be boiled down to whether or not an official values control over damage. This can be blamed in part on the gauzy, vague wording of the Unified Rules. (“Judges shall use a sliding scale and recognize the length of time the fighters are either standing or on the ground, as follows: If the mixed martial artists spent a majority of a round on the canvas, then effective grappling is weighed first; and [then] effective striking is weighed.”)

But this is in almost immediate contrast to the passage preceding it, which states, “Judges shall evaluate mixed martial arts techniques, such as effective striking, effective grappling, control of the fighting area, effective aggressiveness and defense. … Evaluations shall be made in the order in which the techniques appear above, giving the most weight in scoring to effective striking, effective grappling, control of the fighting area and effective aggressiveness and defense.”

If an athlete spends four minutes of a round in a fighter’s guard landing irritating, slapping strikes but receives a significant beating on the feet for the remaining minute, the judges have probable cause to award the controlling -- but non-damaging -- fighter the round. This is ridiculous. In maintaining position on the ground, you’re effectively stifling your opponent’s attack. But without delivering a substantial one of your own, all you’ve done is turn a fight into a citizen’s arrest. Subduing an athlete is not beating them. Why should the fighter who dominated and battered you be penalized for accomplishing more in that minute than you could in four?

6. The Phantom 10-10

For reasons unknown, judges in mixed martial arts are fixated on one method of scoring: the 10-9 round, the winner getting 10 and the loser nine. In actuality, rules suggest that a clearly one-sided round can be 10-8 or even 10-7. (Their absence isn’t a bad thing: “dominance” is so wildly subjective that increased examples of 10-8 or 10-7 would congest and confuse the system even more than it is now.)

The 10-10 round, however, allowed by the Unified Rules, would offer a solution to those close rounds where neither fighter exhibits clear effectiveness or bouts of striking were nullified by extended control. Following the rules, Lyoto Machida and Mauricio Rua’s first round was 10-10: neither fighter stood out.

7. The Statisticians

Prizefighting often has more going on than a single pair of eyes can see. Stat houses like FightMetric -- which supplies the UFC with the data on their broadcast -- and CompuStrike view bouts and tally power strikes and takedowns. This is hard, factual stuff that should be used in the evaluation of a fight, not a post-mortem prosecution of the judges. At least one judge should be using these numbers as his reference point, bringing objective data into the equation.

Judges have a difficult job, compounded by the layered nature of the sport. No system will ever completely eliminate the potential for botched decisions or human error. But there’s no argument to be made against increasing scrutiny in how officials perform their duties. Judges need judges.

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