Lembo: 10 Pt Must system isn’t bad, illtrained judges are
UFC President Dana White frequently cites government regulation of MMA by the relevant State Athletic Ciommission as bedrock upon which the…
UFC President Dana White frequently cites government regulation of MMA by the relevant State Athletic Ciommission as bedrock upon which the success of the UFC and of MMA rests. No figure has been more influential in that process than Nick Lembo. Lembo cuyrently serves Deputy Attorney General to the state of New Jersey/ He is assigned as Counsel of the Athletic Board and is in charge of handling legal matters, administrative duties. and matchmaking decisions. He is also chairman of the Association of Boxing Commission’s MMA rules committee, and as well chairman of the Officials’ Training and Development Committee.
In an interview with ProMMARadio Lembo discusses what is wrong with judging in MMA, and and what isn’t.
“It’s tough to be a judge. It’s tough for five minute rounds and sometimes it’s tougher to score a round where not much happens… In New Jersey, we have a pretty robust amateur system. You attend a general seminar and you start as a shadow inspector. After two shadows you can become a regular inspector and from there you can work your way up to a shadow judge. Shadow judge means you’re there, you’re actually sitting there and you’re cageside or ringside scoring the bouts and the referee’s collecting your scores but your scores are not counting. That gives us an opportunity to monitor your scoring in a live setting.”
“The next step is to shadow at pro shows which means I’ll put you next to Jeff Blatnick for 1/3 of the fights and next to Doug Crosby for 1/3 of the fights and you score the round. I’ll collect them at the end of the night but you talk to the judge during the fights, “why’d you score that? how’d you value that” and you get different perspectives on how the judges score a round or how they keep their notes for scoring the rounds. Some keep notes mentally, some have a checksheet, others have paperwork that they write down so it just gives you perspectives on things.”
“You really have to love it and have the lifestyle that you can afford it because you’re not really getting paid that well. That really upsets me because of the criticism of officials. Nobody’s trying to give a bad score or make a bad call on purpose when you have to book time off work to come down to Atlantic City for 10 hours before, during, and after an event and you’re getting paid a couple hundred bucks. Even with the big shows you’ll likely make less than a thousand bucks.”
“I don’t think the 10 point must system is a bad system, I think it’s just training of the judges and you have to remember we’re a young sport here and it’s just exploded in the past couple years. Judges are learning too. Just because a decision was a bad decision in the media or the fans, doesn’t mean it was actually a bad decision. It’s part of the sport. No matter what system you use, it’s still going to be subject to scrutiny to a certain degree.”
“You’re gonna err on the side of conservative using the 10-9 instead of 10-8… For 10-8 rounds, we use two words in our seminars: dominance and damage. Dominance can be positional and damage can be the impact of the strikes or threatening submissions. I’m not in favor of putting in a system that’s even more difficult to figure out. Let’s focus on getting the 10-10, 10-9, 10-8 and 10-7 right and see how that works before we start going crazy with half points and having to debate “was that a 10-9.5?” or was that a 10-10. Was that a 10-8 or a 10-7.5. The half point system just makes it more complicated right now.”
“As far as the hierarchy, striking is given the most weight followed by grappling and control of the fighting area, then effective aggressiveness and lastly defense. If you’re getting down to scoring a round on effective aggression or defense, that’s an interesting fight. In most rounds somebody had the more effective striking or grappling.”
“It’s still a striking art, not a grappling tournament. You’re looking at the impact of the elbows, knees and punches as opposed to grappling. Heavy striking is a big attempt to finish and with grappling, it’s a close second because you’re using the grappling to set up the submissions. Striking works standing or on the ground, so that’s why it has more significance.”
“We’re still young. The fans and the media jump up on each other and we have to stick together. We have to get this sport to grow. It’s not legal in New York and it’s not as big as NASCAR or the NFL yet. We have to help make this sport as big as we can and not take pot shots at each other because the people that don’t want this thing to succeed, they’ll use it against us.”