I really wanted to take a look into DIVISIVE fights. Not fights like Paddy VS Gordon, where pretty much everyone is in agreement that the decision was poor, or fights like GSP vs Hendricks where it’s close, but there’s only really one round that’s up for debate. I’m looking more at the messier decisions where there are multiple rounds or scores that get argued about and really call into question the scoring criteria of MMA.

Strickland vs Cannonier

Strickland is fighting this weekend, obviously, so I’ll start things off with one of his fights. It’s not often you see a split decision where all the scorecards are 49-46 one way or the other. It’s also not often you have a fight where not a single round is clear. Not a single round was unanimous on the judge’s scorecards. Media members have scores ranging from 50-45 cannonier to 49-46 strickland. All the rounds on mmadecisions are 50/50. Round 3 is in Cannonier’s favor by just 1.2 percent. Basically every scorecard possible got submitted. And, somehow, none of them are really wrong. For 25 minutes, neither fighter did enough to show that they’re better than the other. Cannonier struggled to close the distance but, when given the opportunity, was able to land hard shots to the body and head, being more accurate than Strickland across all five rounds. Strickland didn’t land as hard, but outstruck Cannonier to the head by a wide margin and bothered him with some unexpected counters on several occasions. So, what wins?

​

Sterling vs Yan 2

Probably one of the more popular examples of a very hard to call decision. 44% gave it to yan 48-47, while 38% gave it to sterling either 48-47 or 48-46. Then around 12% had it as a draw. The biggest points of contention are: who took round one, and is round two a 10-8 or not? Both are difficult to call due to how close rd1 is (yan had more aggression and probably better strikes, but sterling landed more numerically), and what constitutes a 10-8 (yan spent all of rd 2 fending off submissions and taking some shots, but sterling didn’t really deal much damage or get a strong submission attempt in). It’s an interesting fight to score and one that most MMA judges should have to watch to see how their judging aligns with the unified rules of mma.

Ngannou vs Gane

I didn’t want to go over this one since it’s also very popular and talked about often, but it deserves to have some interesting points mentioned about it. This one was not a split. The judges gave it to Ngannou 48-47 x2 and 49-46. Almost all media outlets gave it to Ngannou, only one giving Gane the nod. But, watching the fight live, you’d know it was a razor close fight that people were uncertain about after the final bell rung. It’s about a 60/40 split on mma decisions. I’m pretty surprised to see 10% give it to Ngannou 49-46 considering the first round seemed pretty clearly in favor of Gane (statistically outstruck Ngannou and was more accurate), but I also haven’t watched it in a while. Perhaps people were woo’d by Ngannou’s higher activity, even if most of those shots were missed.

​

Blachowicz vs Ankalaev

This one’s really, really messy. Split draw for a vacant belt. On the judge’s scorecards, rounds 3 and 5 were the dissenting ones. They couldn’t decide who won round 3, or whether round 5 was a 10-8 or not. Almost all media members gave it to Ankalaev. MMAdecisions has it as a draw, but not by a very large margin. Rounds 2 and 4 are a lock for jan and ank respectively, with 1,3 and 5 being difficult. Round 5 is another case of a round being scored a 10-8 not due to a heavy amount of damage being inflicted or overwhelming dominance being shown, but because of jan not really doing anything scoreable for the entire duration of the round. If the ref didn’t intervene at the end of the round, jan would never get out of bottom position. But ank wouldn’t be able to finish him, either.

​

I’m trying to learn more about MMA scoring, so I’d like to hear your guys’ thoughts and what other fights you think are super messy in their scoring.