Anthony Smith has addressed the MMA judging controversy.
Albazi vs. Kara-France
After five rounds of fighting, Amir Albazi was awarded the split decision victory over Kai Kara-France at UFC Vegas 74 last weekend. Many, many people have disagreed with the judges’ verdict since then, including Smith.
The former UFC title challenger has given his two cents on the questionable decision along with how fights are scored, because this is a common occurrence within the fight game.
“I did [score the fight for Kara-France],” Smith said on The MMA Hour. “I went back and rewatched it yesterday and after rewatching, it felt like maybe when I watched it live, I thought like, ‘this is clear, there’s not a lot of controversy, Kai Kara-France won that fight’. After watching it the second time, I can see the argument for Albazi for sure. I still believe Kai Kara-France won. But, I definitely see the argument.”
Smith On The Scoring Criteria
Smith believes these fights aren’t judged by the judging criteria which is: “Effective Striking/Grappling shall be considered the first priority of round assessments. Effective Aggressiveness is a ‘Plan B’ and should not be considered unless the judge does not see ANY advantage in the Effective Striking/Grappling realm. Cage/Ring Control (‘Plan C’) should only be needed when ALL other criteria are 100% even for both competitors. This will be an extremely rare occurrence.” (via MMA Referee)
“I hate to defend the judges cause I just hate it — because they’re all idiots. When it comes to like the judging criteria, I think we’re judging fights on maybe how they probably should be judged, not by the criteria that the judges are given,” Smith continued. “When we’re talking about takedowns and, and control and Octagon control and aggressiveness and like a lot of times none of that stuff really matters.
“Takedowns don’t really matter, it’s just the change in position to the judges. They’re not supposed to really weigh takedowns. “It’s kind of what you do with it and then the effective grappling and they’re given a different criteria than what we like to judge fights on.”
Smith On The Judges: ‘They Do A Really Poor Job’
Smith added on to his rant about the ‘poor job’ the judges are doing.
“The judges, they get it wrong a lot, they do a really poor job and that really needs to be managed. But there are a lot of times I think that we disagree with the way the judges are supposed to judge these fights, maybe not always necessarily with the judges. “
Anthony Smith wants fighters to be involved in " judging criteria conversations." #TheMMAHour
"It’s all well and good to have all these dorks in suits that are 150 years old making the rules, but why don’t you have someone that’s been in there?”
▶️ https://t.co/JSJ1LoKUg3 pic.twitter.com/22JUnLDRFv
— MMA Fighting (@MMAFighting) June 5, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/live/Fa60_fcQVQw?feature=share
