Diego Sanchez’s split decision victory over Clay Guida at Saturday night’s Ultimate Fighter Finale was one of the best UFC fights of the year, but MMA fans have been talking almost as much about the judging of the fight as the fight itself.
Sanchez obviously won the first round, but it’s open to debate whether it should have been scored 10-8 or 10-9. The second and third rounds were close enough that both could have been scored 10-9 for either Sanchez or Guida, or 10-10. That means I think any of these scores is reasonable:
30-26 Sanchez
30-27 Sanchez
30-28 Sanchez
30-29 Sanchez
29-27 Sanchez
29-28 Sanchez
29-28 Guida
28-28 draw
29-29 draw
As it turns out, the judges scored the bout 29-27 for Sanchez, 29-28 for Sanchez and 29-28 for Guida. All reasonable scores in my opinion. Luke Thomas of Bloody Elbow has a post up that examines the judging in more detail, including the fact that Sherdog’s three judges had it 30-27 for Sanchez, 29-28 for Sanchez and a 29-29 draw. Again, all reasonable scores in my opinion.
But while I think it’s reasonable to score the fight a draw or even a win for Guida, I don’t think there’s any reasonable way that a person could look at the totality of the 15-minute fight and say that Guida was the better fighter. Obviously, if you just look at the whole fight objectively and determine who was better, you have to say Sanchez was the victor. That’s what Rami Genaur of FightMetric.com does, and the FightMetric.com method says Sanchez dominated the fight.
Is it time to re-think MMA Judging?
Diego Sanchez’s split decision victory over Clay Guida at Saturday night’s Ultimate Fighter Finale was one of the best UFC fights of the year, but MMA fans have been talking almost as much about the judging of the fight as the fight itself. Sanchez obviously won the first round, but it’s open to debate whether…
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