We have seen the judge that tries to overcorrect his scoring in the last round, right? The judge in Grasso/Shevchenko comes to mind. If he doesn’t make an incorrect judgement on the fifth round then Valentina would be the champion, but it would be fair to say that if you take the whole of the fight then Grasso retaining the belt is a fair outcome (maybe some people thought she lost, but I think the consensus was around 50/50 on who won the fight, so it wouldnt be controversial to say she won, is my point).
What about if we forgot all about that, and decided the score of each round by consensus, rather than the fight? So instead of a 47-48/48-47/47-47 scorecard leading to a majority draw, why not take each of the three judges scores for each round and form a consensus score for that round?
Let me use Usman vs Chimaev scorecards from 294 as an example:
Cleary scores it 29-27 Chimaev, with rounds 1 & 3 for Chimaev
Paolillo scores it 29-27 Chimaev with rounds 1 & 2 for Chimaev
Lethaby scores it 28-28 Draw with round 1 for Chimaev and 2 & 3 for Usman
Result: Chimaev by Majority Decision
Now, lets look round by round:
Round 1: All three judges score it 10-8 for Chimaev. Outcome is therefore 10-8 Chimaev
Round 2: Cleary and Lethaby score it for Usman, Paolillo for Chimaev. Outcome is Usman
Round 3: Lethaby and Paolillo score it for Usman, Cleary for Chimaev. Outcome is Usman
Fight outcome: 28-28 because consensus says Chimaev 10-8 round 1, Usman won the other 2 rounds.
Sure, its a draw, which isn’t satisfying as an outcome, but it is a valid outcome. I chose this fight in particular because its recent and because it demonstrates quite well the point about coming to a consensus on the round rather than the fight as a whole. That makes it more difficult to overcorrect your scoring as a judge, because outliers would just get discarded.
For example, if one judge scores a round 10-8 and the other two score it 10-9? It goes down as a 10-9.
I mean, it could mean Bruce Buffer fucks up the announcement even more than he scuffed the Chimaev/Usman one but I think this makes sense, no?
P.S. I am aware they should just change the whole scoring system for MMA, so the likelihood of them making a change like this is pretty unrealistic. But its fun to talk about, no?
submitted by /u/rjgr
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