If there was a theme to Saturday’s UFC 247 broadcast, it was this: Oh my lord, MMA judging is bad.
For Joe Soliz, some supposed bad judging turned him into, effectively, a meme – and not a cat playing a piano, either.
Bad MMA judging is a song we’ve heard before. It’s rare, though, when our collective ire takes aim at one specific person, and so quickly, like the way it happened for Soliz in Houston. Is the anger justified, or is our mob mentality so strong in this day and age that we’re OK overlooking a few basic facts in the name of making a poster boy for our cause?
Early on at UFC 247, Andre Ewell beat Jonathan Martinez by split decision. The consensus was that Martinez won the fight, but the numbers say it was a close one. (Full disclosure: MMA Junkie scored it on site in Houston for Ewell, 29-28.) Ewell outstruck Martinez 85-74 overall, according to the UFC’s official stats, and outstruck him in the first and second rounds. Martinez won the striking battle in the third, but only 20-19. On paper, it doesn’t seem like a stretch to say Ewell won the fight.
The issue, though, was that Soliz scored it 30-27 for Ewell. And once the UFC’s broadcast team had that information, it was the start of a long night for him – even though at the time, Soliz almost certainly had no idea his name would be mentioned Sunday about as much as Jon Jones’.
Jones defended his light heavyweight title in the main event with a unanimous decision over Dominick Reyes. Two judges had it 48-47 for Jones. But Soliz had it 49-46, and when the broadcast crew realized it was the same judge who gave Ewell the 30-27, it was game over.
The proverbial pitchforks were out, and there was no turning back.
One of the beefs longtime UFC color commentator Joe Rogan brought up was that a commission like the one in Texas has been built off a history of boxing, not necessarily other combat sports like MMA. By that logic, Rogan reasoned, many judges are not so great for MMA. Fellow analyst Dominick Cruz and play-by-play voice Jon Anik seemed to concur.
“That was the same guy that gave Andre Ewell the decision earlier tonight against Jonathan Martinez, which is just ridiculous,” Rogan said on the broadcast after the main event. “That was another fight that just made no sense to any of us. It makes me angry. We’ve talked about it so many times. It’s less of an issue in some commissions where they’ve dealt with combat sports, specifically MMA, longer. But I can’t argue about this enough. I can’t get angry enough. I’ve done it so many times.
“For anyone to think that was 4-1 Jon Jones, that person’s insane. You’re insane. Dominick Reyes put on a hell of a fight tonight, and to disrespect that performance with that kind of judging is insane. Clearly, it’s a giant issue with people judging who clearly don’t understand martial arts.”
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The logic behind that argument is spot on, and it absolutely has been a factor when the UFC travels to certain states. But in this case, we’re talking about Texas – a state the UFC has been visiting since 2007, and a state that puts on hundreds of MMA fights a year. There’s nothing new about MMA as far as the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation is concerned. This is old hat.
Rogan’s argument holds water in a general sense, and he has forgotten more about MMA than I could ever know in 10 lifetimes covering this sport, so generally I’d give him the benefit of the doubt. But in this case, the problem that arises is when an individual judge’s name starts getting bandied about on the broadcast the way Soliz’s did, the viewing audience can conflate the idea of Texas having “boxing judges” who aren’t qualified and Soliz doing a bad job judging the Ewell win and the Jones win.
Those two ideas on the broadcast could reasonably be assumed to go together, which seems a little unfair to Soliz. A big portion of the audience turned off the pay-per-view Saturday night with the idea that Soliz is unqualified as an MMA judge because he’s not around or hasn’t been around the sport.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
I preface this by saying I don’t know Joe Soliz. I’ve never met him. And I wasn’t on site in Houston. I watched the fights from my couch and heard the same broadcast as everyone else. But after hearing Soliz get thrown under the bus multiple times, I had to see what this apparently unqualified guy’s problem was.
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It turns out Soliz started teaching different martial arts more than 40 years ago. He’s been a judge for other UFC fights in Texas before Saturday and has been a referee for UFC fights in Texas, too. He regularly works as a referee for other promotions throughout the state. Are his past UFC fights without disparity when he’s been a judge? Maybe not. But that’s not the point. The point is, don’t say the guy isn’t around MMA and doesn’t know MMA. He clearly has been. Say he stinks, but don’t imply it’s because he only knows boxing.
But this is how the world works with social media. Someone with influence says something, and then easily influenced people run with it. It goes viral, and suddenly someone who perhaps did nothing wrong is fully under the bus, and it’s too late. The broadcast team may have done the equivalent of sharing a fake news meme on Facebook.
After the Jones-Reyes fight, Cruz joined in the criticism: “… Joe Soliz should have (his) judging card revoked to call that 4-1. I don’t know what he’s been seeing tonight, but at least his name gets to be put on blast, because he’s not doing a very good job, in my opinion. But I’m not the judge.”
It’s like Cruz was reveling in the chance to have him “put on blast.” Anik was a little more diplomatic in his criticism, and offered that “when we go back and watch it, maybe we’ll have more clarity.”
Make no mistake: It’s fine to rip Soliz for that 49-46 score. That seems like a legitimate gripe if you’re of the opinion Reyes won the fight. But Soliz was put into the conversation with the narrative that Texas has boxing judges who don’t know anything about MMA, and suddenly that was the story regardless of actual facts.
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I don’t expect that broadcast crew to be Googling Joe Soliz’s name to do research before giving on-the-spot insight on a live broadcast, so there’s some leeway. Say his scores sucked. Fine. But it’s a rough night for Soliz when he doesn’t get the benefit of having his background framed in the proper context. Now Joe Soliz is known as the MMA judge who doesn’t know MMA instead of the MMA judge who maybe just had a bad night with how he scored two fights.
And by the way, let’s go inside the numbers. Everyone gave Jones Rounds 4-5. Everyone gave Reyes Round 1. The broadcast team took issue with Soliz’s 49-46 score, which gave Jones Rounds 2, 3, 4 and 5. But Soliz wasn’t alone giving Jones Round 2; Marcos Rosales joined him. And Soliz wasn’t alone giving Jones Round 3; Chris Lee joined him there.
So we’re OK throwing Soliz to the Twitter wolves over his 49-46, but we don’t want to point out that in each of the two rounds in question, one of his fellow judges concurred with him?
Where was the outrage when Lauren Murphy took a split decision from Andrea Lee, and Danny De Alejandro had it 30-27 for Murphy when every media member tracked by MMADecisions.com scored the fight for Lee? How about the outrage for Patrick Patlan, who was the dissenting judge in split decisions for Trevin Giles over James Krause and Dan Ige over Mirsad Bektic?
Instead, it was Soliz who took the brunt of this thing. Does his 49-46 score for Jones sound odd? Maybe. But if you average the three judges’ scores together for that fight, guess what you come up with? 49-46 for Jones. Two of the three scored Round 2 for Jones, and two of the three scored Round 3 for Jones. Everyone gave him 4 and 5. Sorry, but that’s just the math.
But Joe Soliz gave Andre Ewell a 30-27, and that was it. The train left the station, and there was no turning back.
It’s 2020: Never let facts get in the way of a good meme.
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