If there is one thing you can count on from the Texas athletic commission, it is that when they have judges scoring fights, controversy is soon to follow. This time however, judge Joshua Ferraro has actually explained his questionable scoring.
Joshua “JJ” Ferraro was the only judge that did not give Bobby Green the third round on the scorecards in his bout with Rafael Fiziev. This was considered baffling, simply because many fans felt like the uptick in aggression from Green, while Fiziev faded, was enough to clearly give Bobby that round.
Joshua Ferraro Defends His Scorecard
In a rare statement from a judge, JJ posted to his Twitter and defended his decision to give Fiziev round three. The lengthy message detailed his reasoning, explaining that Fiziev’s varied striking and overall aggression outweighed Green’s boxing based attacks.
Check the Twitter post for the full statement.
“I scored 10-9 for Fiziev in Round 3.
First and foremost want to congratulate both fighters on their performance and great fight. Round 3 for me is the toughest round to score that night,” Ferraro wrote.
“Sitting cageside you know whose shots are landing hard and clean. Round 3 cannot say that a 10-9 round in favor of Green is ‘wrong’ per se but I still stand by my score based on the Unified Scoring Criteria…
“We can all agree that Effective Grappling is not a factor in this round, so we move on to Effective Striking. What is effective striking? Strikes that are deemed most effective are strikes that have potential to have ‘Impact’ in a fight, meaning having potential to end the fight. Those are the strikes that hold more weight than any other strikes,” Ferraro continued.
“Looking at the fight about one minute in Fiziev landed a shot that in my opinion hurt Green, Green played off well by shaking his head no. This is entertaining I understand, but antics are not scored, toughness is not scored. Its not scored against you but we assess the strike the same.
“Bobby threw more volume and landed more ‘significant’ strikes in every single round of the fight which indicates that Volume and Landed strikes does not hold the most weight in mma scoring, Round three although razor close was no different in my eyes. After the halfway point of the round I still see Fiziev as having landed the most ‘impactful’ strikes of the fight. A few head kicks, a few body kicks, hard countering crosses, (That visually knocked Bobby’s head back), Strong leg kicks that Bobby ate well,” Ferraro wrote.
“If I am assessing the quality and potential “impact” of the strikes that were landed I had it about even at best for Green. Green landed his best shot of the night close to the end of the round that knocked the fatigued Fiziev back a few steps, but nothing too concerning or bothering him much in my eyes.”
From there, Joshua Ferraro backs up his claims with statistics from the fight. Although it is worth noting that this only serves as some level of justification after the fact, as judges have no access to this information during fights.
“In MMA Criteria if all is equal we go into alternative criteria. It rarely happens and I can’t honestly say last time I had to pull that out. But it is there, and it is there for a reason. Effective aggression? For me it is a wash also can’t say Fiziev coming forward eating jabs all round is effective aggression and can’t say that Green’s countering style is effective aggressive either,” Ferraro wrote.
“What is the next criteria if Effective Striking/Grappling is equal, and Effective aggression is equal? We have cage control. Who was controlling the cage? I give a slight advantage for Fiziev constantly controlling more of the octagon and more of a will to come forward in the round.
“I believe that the commentating and fan noise blew this one way out of proportion. If you look at the fight ufcstats.com it also shows more of a percentage to spread the damage/impact out through the whole body head to toe for Fiziev. That is to show there can be style bias for Green’s busy handwork and hard kicks being overlooked. It happens all the time in MMA,” Ferraro concluded.
“Round three could have gone either way. One of the other judges told me immediately after the fight that he could see my score as well and was not surprised or shocked at all when went to Fiziev 10-9.
JJ Ferraro”
@seanMFmadden @MMAjunkie @kennyflorian @Jon_Anik @dc_mma pic.twitter.com/5I5HmmdhBj
— The_Muay_Thai _Ref (@JJ_TX_Referee) August 9, 2021
Whether or not you agree with Joshua Ferraro, it is nice to see a judge step forward and take some level of accountability for their questionable scoring. If anything, this just further displays how subjective and difficult the scoring criteria is in MMA.
