For a while, some fans have been wanting to see open scoring being used inside the UFC. However Dana White is against that idea, and made that sentiment known recently.
Let’s face it, judging in the UFC is downright horrible at times. After all, there is a reason that White urges fighters to never leave it in the hands of the judges, and it is not just to make for more exciting fights.
There have been a few options suggested to make the scoring system work a bit better. One such option, which has been used by other promotions across combat sports, is an open scoring system.
What open scoring does, is share the judge’s scores as the fight takes place. Each round will see the scores displayed on the broadcast, as well as the giant screens inside of whatever arena the fights take place.
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Dana White Is Against Open Scoring
As much as some may think that open scoring will help to fix the judging problem, Dana White does not agree. Speaking in a recent interview, the UFC President explained that he does not want to see open scoring in the UFC.
In his opinion, having things set up in this way would allow for boring fights. He believes that a fighter will see that he is up two rounds, and coast through the third round, making for a lame ending to the bout.
“It completely takes away the anticipation of who won the fight,” White said. (h/t MMAJunkie)
“If a guy knows that he’s up two rounds and you’re a professional fighter, you can absolutely stay away from a guy for an entire round and make the fight completely horrible.
“If you already know you’ve got two rounds in the bag, guarantee if you saw your score up there, all (you) have to do is stay away from this guy for the next five minutes. That makes for a lot of bad third rounds.”
“Its never going to be perfect,” White added. “There are always going to be fights that absolutely drive you insane and piss you off, blow your bets, there will always be all these other things that go with the fight business.
“At the end of the day, watching the fight and waiting for the results are fun.”
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While there has not exactly been to support the idea that open scoring leads to bad third rounds, Dana White does have some good points. Not only that, but the jury is still out on whether that method actually leads to better judging.
The fact of the matter is that open scoring seems to only serve to let you know, in the moment, how a fight is scored and by whom. With that in mind, the scoring system in MMA is a tricky problem to fix, without a doubt.
