Doc Hamilton Changes His Mind About Machida/Rua Scoring

Following the UFC 104 title scrap between Lyoto Machida and Mauricio Rua, we were fairly shocked when the scores came back unanimously for Machida. Wasn't Shogun the aggressor during the majority of the fight? Didn't he land more strikes? When it came time for the judges to explain themselves, we learned that leg kicks don't end fights, so you might as well not count them at all. But at least one judge from that night is having a crisis of conscience. From Yahoo! Sports (via Fightlinker):


[Nelson "Doc"] Hamilton was one of the three judges who controversially scored that fight 48-47 in favor of Machida. Yet after watching tape of the fight, Hamilton now believes Rua was the winner. “There was a round in that fight [Round 4] where my line of sight while they were standing was blocked,” said Hamilton, who feels TV monitors for judges would solve the problem. “Because of the angle where most of the round was fought, I couldn’t see the punches and whether they were landing. If the fight had been on the ground, I could look at the big screens, but this was a fight where the blows were coming one at a time and you don’t want to look away and miss an important blow.”

When Hamilton saw the fight again, he noted that viewers saw Round 4 from a completely different perspective that he did...based on what he couldn’t see from his cageside vantage point, he believes Rua won the round.

Besides the addition of TV monitors, Hamilton is also in favor of tweaking the 10-point-must scoring system:


Hamilton proposes a scoring system based on breaking the scoring down to half-points, where a close round, a solid win, a dominant win and having the opponent on the verge of defeat could all be differentiated. Under this system, if a fighter wins a round that’s difficult to call, it gets scored 10-9.5. When it’s clear that one fighter won the round, it’s 10-9. When a fighter dominates the round but doesn’t have his opponent in bad shape during the round, or if a fighter does major damage but the opponent gets a degree of offense in, that would be a 10-8.5. A 10-8 round or lower would be similar to how things are scored today.

So, two things...

1) Can we finally put an end to the ridiculous notion that the judge has "the best seat in the house"? That line has long been used as a rebuttal to outraged fans whose opinions are apparently worthless because they weren't actually at the fight. Forget the fact that us fans watch the fights on high-definition screens, with the benefit of multiple camera angles, whereas judges are squinting over from cageside at things that they rarely have the best sight-line on. Most of the time, the view from my sofa is far better than the view from the judging table.

2) The use of half-point scores is clearly not the answer. "If a fighter wins a round that’s difficult to call, it gets scored 10-9.5." Well how do you know you're giving the right fighter the 10 score if it's so difficult to call? Judges would probably make a lot of the same mistakes under this system, but they'd be doing it with fractions. A better solution is more 10-10 rounds — if you can't decide which fighter won the round, then call it a draw instead of relying on guesswork or gut feelings. A 10-9 is supposed to be awarded when one fighter clearly wins a round, but that's not how it's always used. Unfortunately, MMA judges are often too scared to drop the double-10:


Another inherent problem is that while judges are told they can give 10-10 scores, they also believe if they do so with any frequency, they won’t be asked back. “I’m not going to die on that sword,” said Hamilton.

Completely understandable, buddy. Careers and titles hang in the balance, but you wouldn't want to jeopardize your cushy job of watching fights and awarding winning scores to who-the-fuck-ever.

“I won’t bow my head in shame. There was very little wrong with our strategy. We had images of Shogun’s fights, which we studied beforehand. That strategic edge started to fade because Lyoto didn’t execute the low kick defense we practiced and allowed Shogun to set the rhythm. Our group didn’t achieve proper harmonious communication with Lyoto, who was lost at times. Up until the third round, we were fine. However, the fourth round was tied, and the fifth went to Shogun… A vital part of Lyoto’s game, since his power comes from his legs, and Shogun killed his leg. At anyrate the experience was good for us, since we’d never dealt with adversity. Karate also has it’s weaknesses, but noone had seen them up until now. Shogun exploited them, and deserves congratulations. That’s exactly what I told him after the fight when he was crying, pissed that he didn’t win… Had Shogun fought as he normally does, with his arms, Lyoto would’ve knocked him out in the first or second round. We did not expect him to kick that much and neglected the karate defense, which is different from the muay thai defense. Before the kick, you move up and stop the attack. We already planned a different strategy for the next time, studying everything.”