Farah Hannoun: It can’t hurt for fighters to know where they stand
We often see controversy during the scoring of MMA fights, but UFC 247 was one of the worst in recent memory.
It was a night filled with questionable decisions, but none came at a larger cost than the headliner between UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones and challenger Dominick Reyes.
Jones defeated Reyes via unanimous decision on all three judges’ scorecards in a fight that many believed Reyes should have won. The biggest outrage was how one of the three judges scored the fight 49-46 (4-1 in terms of rounds) for Jones.
So how can we prevent such an outcome? Open scoring might cause some inconsistencies and fighters to coast, but at least it will allow them to know where they stand. Close rounds can be tough to score. Does a takedown outweigh the strikes thrown by the other fighter? Were the strikes damaging? Was it a 10-8 or 10-9 round? These are all subject to opinion, but if a fighter knew going into the later rounds whether or not they were winning, at least they could do something about it.
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Now, of course, that’s easier said than done, and you can only understand how it feels if you’re in there, but at least you can come out with a sense of urgency knowing, for example, that you might have to finish the fight to win. Fighters’ corners often try to provide opinions on how the fight is being scored, which ends up being detrimental to their fighters at times.
While you can’t control the judges’ opinions, you can control how you fight, so if you’re aware of how the fight is being scored, it’s not too late to adjust your gameplan. It could be reckless, and it won’t solve a potential ludicrous scorecard from a judge, but at least a fighter will know where they stand and can take matters into their own hands while the fight is still unfolding.
That counts for something.
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Next page – Danny Segura: Not open to open scoring, and here’s why