MMA Judging Still an Issue in 2022

Overtime Heroics Editorial

285 days ago

Every MMA fan knows that sometimes fights have poor MMA judging. After some controversial scorecards this past weekend with Bellator’s 289 main events between Raufeon Stots vs. Danny Sabatello and the UFC 282 co-main between Paddy Pimblett vs. Jared Gordon, it got many MMA fans debating once again the never-ending topic of poor MMA judging.

It is unfortunate that fight cards are continuing to be overshadowed by either one or two judges who may or may not understand the sport of mixed martial arts, or simply are going rogue with their own way of scoring a fight.

This Is No Movie: MMA Judging is Bad

You never want to think the beautiful sport of mixed martial arts is rigged – it is truly unimaginable that a judge would be "paid off". This is no movie and there aren’t these big crime bosses running a racket using MMA fights to make a profit and realistically, that would make no sense.

The poor decisions from the questionable MMA judging leave so many queries on the end of the fans. In Danny Sabatello’s situation, a scorecard can give the fighter a sense of false hope. By giving a score of 50-45, the controversial judge had Danny full-heartedly believing that he deserved a win, although the other judges and the rest of the world didn’t agree.

You know that poor judging has been a problem for a long when the pros are making public statements. It is great to see that they are using their personal social media as a platform to voice their concerns, as this is an ongoing and valid issue. Poor MMA judging can lead to loss of bonuses, win streaks, title contention, rankings, and so on.

Here is how some of the pros reacted to the controversy this weekend.

Pro Reactions to Poor MMA Judging

You have to know when fighters get ripped off by judges: You get half the pay. Whatever momentum/streak you had is destroyed. Next fight is most likely not as big. It sucks when you did your job and the reward gets taken away by someone that deals with no consequences

— Matt Brown (@IamTheImmortal) December 11, 2022

MMA badly needs a systematic overhaul of it's judging and scoring criteria. Instead of creating its own system, you tried to bend it to fix boxing, and IT SIMPLY DOESNT WORK. And then you tried to put the burden on fighters by saying "don't leave it to the judges".

— Din Thomas (@DinThomas) December 12, 2022

I was robbed everyone knows it i… I can cry about it but I been back from worst and gods plan is the best plan so I know there’s something big to come from it

— Jared Gordon (@JFlashGordonMMA) December 11, 2022

One of the three judges that selfishly and negatively impacted two peoples careers that should have gone on to win and have their life changed https://t.co/946u4ty4cN

— Terrance McKinney (@twrecks155) December 11, 2022

This past weekend the main man surrounding the controversial MMA judging was Doug Crosby. This is not the first time that Doug Crosby has had questionable scorecards. If you do a quick Google search it wouldn’t be hard to find which fights he was notorious for poorly judging.

It seemed that Crosby was flying under the radar and got by with turning in these debatable scorecards until enough was enough, as news has come out and has been reported by MMA Fighting that the Mohegan Athletic Department Director of Athletics Mike Mazzulli will be looking into the matter.

It is great to see The Mohegan Tribe Athletic Department is trying to hold their judges accountable, as at the end of the day it reflects them as a commission as well. Maybe this is the step in the right direction to one day eradicate these horrendous scorecards. Dana White is urging fans to "call the commission" over their concerns with poor MMA judging.

Which judges’ scorecard left you with a bitter taste, or it was so outlandish you screamed robbery? Let us know in the comments below.

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