The sport of MMA needs to accept some blame for the bad decisions it produces. Judging combat sports is difficult. Extremely. Boxing has had countless bad decisions in it's history and in boxing all you have to look for is whether one guy punches the other. In MMA a judge has to look for striking, grappling, cage control, aggressiveness, ground control, top control, submissions, damage, and probably a dozen more things. And how do you judge all that? What carries the most weight? A takedown or a three strike combo? What if a guy gets two takedowns but is hurt by strikes later in the round, what carries more weight? None of that has been defined in MMA. Or what if nothing happens in a round, who wins the round? The one with center control or the one who's footwork forced the other to have "center" control? Judging is essentially opinion. What do you think happened? So when a round is not clear cut it leaves the judge with all the power to choose what he prefers, including the fighter. Why can Floyd Mayweather use his superior footwork and speed to avoid damage and conflict and win every round while a lesser fighter loses the same type of round because he was inactive? Because everyone loves Mayweather and really, it takes boxing skill to avoid the way he does in the ring. The Masvidal/Iaquinta match is a perfect example of perception. Iaquinta is a fan favorite. He takes the fight to his opponent. Almost a brawler. Masvidal is extremely skilled on his feet. He, in my opinion was picking Iaquinta apart. But viewers felt that Masvidal was coasting and running because Iaquinta kept chasing and throwing bombs that mainly missed. I saw one fighter head and shoulders above the other in the striking department. But what many fans and the judges saw was a lot of effort from Iaquinta and another fighter not engaging. That was the perception. I can see that. Even with me giving the fight to Masvidal in the back of my mind I was thinking they may thinking Iaquinta is the aggressor. And to me, that's the worst of judging or commentating. "Well he was the aggressor" or "He was busier, threw more strikes" That means hey you should win for trying. Now, after the fight stats showed that Masvidal actually was more active and accurate during the rounds 2 & 3 that he "coasted" what other reason do we have to award the rounds to Iaquinta? I personally dislike the use of statistics to prove a fighter won because judges don't have that available. A fight should be judged on what we see, not on generated numbers. But I use them here merely to point out how opinion and perception play a major role in today's MMA judging.
