Judging in MMA

After a weekend full of split decision, all sorts of discussion has been going around about the current state of judging in MMA today. I for one am convinced that if I took three random people off of the sherdog forums or the underground, I could get three judges who in the very least, would not be worse than the judges currently are today and would probably be better. You can NOT have boxing judges scoring MMA.

The second round in the Diego Sanchez/Clay Guida fight has been hotly debated as to how to score that round. The debate is either a) did Diego do enough in that one 20 second stretch to win the ground out right or b) did Diego do enough in the round off his back to win the round or c) did Guida win the round. Boxing judges give no love to the fighter on the bottom and very, very rarely do they score for the guy on the bottom. In jiu-jitsu matches, in the guard is basically considered a neutral position. And if you get an aggressive guy on the ground trying for armbars and such while the guy on top is just laying and praying, the bottom guy should win the round. But it does not get scored that way very often. This needs to change.

And I realize that it would never happen, cause judges are so entrenched in their thinking on how to score rounds already, but here is what I would like to see. Right now, a 10-9 round is a close one and a 10-8 round is a dominant one. What I would like to see: First off, make 10-10 rounds forbidden. Now I am all for scoring rounds 10-10, but in my scenario it would not work so 10-10 rounds would have to be forbidden. Then, I would like to see close rounds that could go either way scored 10-9 for one guy. The judges have to give the round to one guy 10-9. Then, a 10-8 round would be a round where one guy won clearly, but not in a dominating fashion. This would be most rounds that currently are scored 10-9. Then, a current day 10-8 round would be scored 10-7 under this system. It will never happen as I said cause judges are so entrenched in there current scoring system, but I think that would solve a lot of judging problems if you could get good judges scoring it that way and it would also negate the "fighter a won rounds 1 and 2 barely and then fighter b won round 3 bigger than fighter a won the first two rounds, but fighter a wins anyways 29-28." Under my proposed scoring system, the fight would be a 28-28 draw.