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Decisions in MMA

You can leave it to the hands of the judges

- some of the time

Tom Karagiannis

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Decisions in mixed martial arts: You can leave it to the hands of

the judges - some of the time

Tom Karagiannis

Dedicated to the memory of Shihan John L Watkins (1923-1993)

Founder Australian Yoshin Ryu Karate

Summary

The mainstream popularity of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) has been growing rapidly in recent

years, predominantly due to the success of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).

judging fights is important and the quality of judging in MMA has been the subject of heated

discussions and much debate. In summary, MMA contests are scored by three judges using

the 10-point must system where 10 points are allocated to the winner of a round and nine or

less points are awarded to the loser, depending on the level of domination. Here, we have

utilized the extensive online resources to analyse the outcomes of selected contests from the

premium pay-per-view UFC events. For various fights, we compared the scoring allocated for

the actual judges to those awarded by experts from various MMA websites in real-time.

Although this data-set is quite modest and data is easily available for more extensive analyses

by experts, we can conclude that at the best case there is on average currently one

controversial decision for every two events. Overall, by careful consideration of the data, it

can be determined that for the most part judging in MMA is competent. However, there are

certain contests that are inherently difficult to judge accurately leading to controversy.

Therefore, the rate of controversial decisions is significant. In looking forward, by

comparing the discrepancies between the scores allocated by the judges with those of the

experts consulted in this work, it is difficult to expect that an average of approximately 5% in

controversial decisions can be easily improved.

Introduction

The mainstream popularity of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) has been growing rapidly in recent

years, predominantly due to the success of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). In

particular, since 2009 accompanying the rise in popularity there has been a rapid increase in

the number of UFC events per year including widely viewed televised events and online

coverage and analysis programs. The success of the UFC can be attributed to a number of

factors (analysed in "The Rise of Mixed Martial Arts: 20 Years of the Ultimate Fighting

Championship"; Scribd), an important one of which is that there is no hint of pre-determined

fight outcomes. In this context, judging fights is important and the quality of judging in

MMA has been the subject of heated discussions and much debate. In summary, MMA

contests are scored by three judges using the 10-point must system where 10 points are

allocated to the winner of a round and nine or less points are awarded to the loser, depending

on the level of domination. Most typically, scores of 10-9 are awarded to the winner and

loser of the round, respectively. In rare cases a round maybe scored 10-10, if the judge

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deemed it to be a draw. Similarly, scores of 10-8 and 10-7 are not as common and are

awarded when one contestant clearly dominates the opponent.

Essentially, the criteria for judging involve scoring on the basis of effective striking, effective

grappling, control of the ring/fighting area, effective aggressiveness and effective defence.

The complete rules are widely available online. Inherently, judging cannot be completely

error-free, particularly in very close contests and honest variations in opinion can arise from

time to time. Here, we have utilized the extensive online resources to analyse the outcomes

of selected contests from the premium pay-per-view UFC events. For various fights, we

compared the scoring allocated for the actual judges to those awarded by experts from

various MMA websites in real-time. To represent, the view of learned fans, the real-time

scoring of a semi-expert (over 10 years Martial Arts experience) was also included in the

analysis. The raw data and the websites consulted are included in this work. It is important

to note that here we have only analysed a tiny fraction of the total fights and the work is

amenable to a thorough expansion by dedicated experts. The website MMA decisions

(mmadecisions.com) is an outstanding up-to-date resource which would allow for a more

comprehensive analysis of the judging in MMA.

UFC 143 - Nick Diaz vs Carlos Condit

The event that drew the attention of the author to the issues associated with judging in MMA

was UFC 143 - Nick Diaz vs Carlos Condit (February 4, 2012 @ the Mandalay Bay Events

Center in Las Vegas, Nevada). As can be observed from the data in this event there were a

number of controversial decisions.

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In this event there were a total of 11 fights with three split decisions (two judges the fight to

one fighter and one judge awards the fight to the other) and the main event resulted in a

highly controversial unanimous decision (all three judges awarded the fight to one of the

fighters. Firstly, the main event was a unanimous decision to Carlos Condit, a decision which

created much controversy within the greater MMA community. This fight was out of the

ordinary as can be seen by the variability in real-time scoring by the experts consulted.

Exactly 50% (4/8) scored the fight for Nick Diaz and the others for Carlos Condit. This fact

highlights the subjective nature of judging, which becomes most evident in fights without an

obvious winner. When carefully analysing the round-by-round judging, it is clear that Round

1 and to a lesser extent Round 4 were the most difficult to judge. To reach a conclusion,

those particular rounds were re-visited by the author, who viewed without volume at least

three times. Indeed, it was close to impossible to be completely objective and accurate in

deciding which fighter to allocate those Rounds - an element of subjectivity could not be

eliminated. As can be seen from further analysis below, this fight really represents the

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exception with the vast majority of fights ending in a unanimous decision being in agreement

with the scoring allocated by the experts consulted.

Split decisions are expectedly more difficult to score, with agreement more difficult to

achieve. At UFC 143 there were three split decisions. One of these was between Matthew

Riddle and Henry Martinez. Matthew Riddle was given the split decision. However, in this

case, all three of the experts consulted agreed with the dissenting judge. Therefore, we may

conclude that the general consensus is that Henry Martinez should have been awarded the

decision. In another split decision in the same event, Josh Koscheck was awarded a split

decision which is agreeable with three of the four expert opinions consulted. Therefore, in

this case was may conclude that Josh Koscheck was correctly awarded the decision. In the

final split decision of this event, matters were complicated since one of the fighters (Alex

Caceres) was deducted two points for low blows. Edwin Figueroa was given the split

decision and for this particular contest there was little correlation between the scores awarded

by the judges with those awarded by the experts consulted. As mentioned this was an extra-

ordinarily difficult event to judge and highlights the discrepancies between the judges and

other MMA experts. To determine whether this event represents the norm, we analysed the

data in a similar way from the first eight UFC pay-per-view events in 2013, with a focus on

the main card.

Analysis of eight UFC pay-per-view events in 2013

As can be observed from the data, unanimous decisions do not typically represent problems

with judging and in the vast majority of cases the scores awarded by judges are either in

perfect or very close agreement with those of the experts. Apart from some very rare

exceptions, a notable one of which is the Phil Davis vs Lyoto Machida fight at UFC 163, the

decisions rendered by the judges agree with the general consensus. Similarly, for split

decisions most typically the fighter who is ultimately awarded the decision (despite the

dissenting judge), is the one who corresponds to having won the contest with the general

consensus. This is typified in UFC 156 where in two separate contests, Isaac Vallie-Flagg

and Evan Dunham where awarded victories by split decision and in both cases, the result

corresponded with the scoring awarded by the experts consulted - the scores by dissenting

judges were the only non-correlating scores and the correct fighter was awarded the decision.

The raw data for the eight UFC events are shown below.

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Conclusions

Overall, in this modest data-set 103 fights were analysed. Of those fights 15 resulted in a

split decision and of those nine were controversial; i.e. the decision rendered by the

dissenting judge correlated with one or more of the experts consulted. At the worst case

scenario and if we include the two controversial unanimous decisions from this data set, we

calculate that a controversial decision would be rendered on 10.7% of occasions (in other

words about four controversial decisions for every three events on average assuming 12

fights per event). If we calculate on the basis of controversial split decisions only, this

corresponds to a controversial decision in 8.7% of fights on average (or approximately one

controversial decision per event). At the best case, if we assume that a controversial decision

corresponds to decisions where the majority or all of the experts are in line with the

dissenting judge a controversial decision can be expected on 4.8% of occasions (or on

average one controversial decision for every two events). Although this data-set is quite

modest and data is easily available for more extensive analyses by experts, we can conclude

that at the best case there is on average currently one controversial decision for every two

events. Overall, by careful consideration of the data, it can be determined that for the most

part judging in MMA is competent. However, there are certain contests that are inherently

difficult to judge accurately leading to controversy. Therefore, the rate of controversial

decisions is significant. In looking forward, by comparing the discrepancies between the

scores allocated by the judges with those of the experts consulted in this work, it is difficult to

expect that an improved to an average of approximately 5% in controversial decisions can be

easily improved.