It’s becoming customary for fans of mixed martial arts to expect questionable judging calls to be made during mixed martial arts events. While many different solutions have been brought up, a recent conversation has begun around the application of boxing’s open scoring practice. Since nearly everything else governing the sport has been brought over from the world of boxing, what would MMA be like if open scoring was introduced?
For those who are unaware of what exactly open scoring is, it is the practice whereby round scores are announced in between each round. So while the fighters are on their stools receiving instructions, an announcer reads off the scores that each judge has submitted. Those who support and object to the move have differing opinions regarding how the use of open scoring would affect mixed martial arts.
On one hand, open scoring instantly reveals when judges are making bad decisions. We’ve seen in past fights that judges have awarded 50-45 or 30-27 scorecards in bouts that were obviously closer than they understood. Those judges would be “outed” for their ineptitude, and the commission’s lack of movement to replace them would be apparent. While websites such as MMA Decisions have put forth a great effort to chronicle which judges are making which calls, this would be another move to help improve the fight game.
On the other hand, one of the arguments that people make to oppose the use of open scoring in boxing is the idea that once fighters learn they are up by an insurmountable margin, they then would have the opportunity to “coast” through the rest of the fight. In MMA, that would mean that a fighter that is up two rounds to none going into the final round would be alerted of that fact and then could take the tact of going into cruise control for the rest of the bout. However, in mixed martial arts it is much more difficult to do that, as taking your “foot off the gas” creates openings that are much easier to exploit, due to the many different facets of MMA.
You don’t have to look too far for an example of how open scoring would have helped a fighter who decided to “coast.” Back at UFC on Fuel TV 8: Silva vs. Stann, UFC women’s bantamweight Miesha Tate may have put her foot in her mouth when she instructed Bryan Caraway to “just coast” towards a decision victory over Takeya Mizugaki as they entered the third round. The outcome would end up being Bryan losing by a split decision. Had open scoring been implemented at that time, he would have known that he was close to losing that bout, and his approach to the third round would have been completely different.
Open scoring would also have another benefit, in that it would help casual fans better understand the makings of a close round versus a landslide. If it was announced that two fighters earned opposing 10- 9 scores, the fans in attendance and those watching on television could realize that the bout was closer than they understood at first. One of the main issues surrounding scoring discrepancies is a lack of knowledge about what the judges are actually looking at in each round.
The Benson Henderson vs. Gilbert Melendez title bout showed that the fans, judges, and media are very far apart when it comes to understanding the application of the unified rules of MMA. Being able to hear the judges’ scores at the end of a round and immediately recollect what occurred in it would go a long way towards bridging that gap. While it is not imperative that the judges’ ideas fully line up with what the fans and media want, there is still a need for there to be an understanding about those ideas so that their decisions appear legitimate.
Mixed martial arts continues to make strides to improve the sports’ rules, and perhaps the application of the open scoring rule would shed more light on how rounds are won and lost, as well as on the individuals awarding those won and lost rounds. They say sunlight disinfects, so maybe with it on the judges throughout, when fights (and fighters’ careers) inevitably end up in their hands, those hands will not only be their cleanest, but they’ll also be their most skillful.
