When Dana White tells fighters to not leave it in the hands of the judges, he really means it.
MMA judging has been a running joke in the sport for years now. The joke continued to add some new punchlines at UFC 155, and White expressed to MMA Fighting that he wasn’t happy with how the judges were scoring the fights, especially the Melvin Guillard-Jamie Varner bout.
“30-27 Guillard. It’s unacceptable. It’s a joke.” White said. “It’s literally a joke. Seriously, the athletic commission must want to dig a f—in’ hole and bury themselves when someone says 30-27 Guillard. They should want to dig a hole and bury themselves.”
Two of the ringside judges scored the contest 30-27 for Varner while one scored it 30-27 for Guillard. The result will officially be a split decision, but it’s hard for anyone watching that fight to believe it shouldn’t have been an unanimous decision.
Although White didn’t mention it in this particular article, there was also a bizarre decision earlier on the prelims that I’m sure he’s not happy about either. Max Holloway was awarded a split-decision victory over Leonard Garcia despite Garcia having been the aggressor and having landedd more significant strikes.
Although regular MMA fans simply sit back and laugh at how some of the scorecards are read, White is concerned about how fans will react to the awful decisions. He used Manny Pacquiao’s split decision loss against Timothy Bradley earlier this year as an example.
“It kills my business,” White said. “Manny Pacquiao lost a f****** decision in that fight, and what happens is, the first thing you think is, and I hate Bob Arum, I can’t stand that f****** guy. He didn’t fix that fight. He had nothing to do with it. I’d love to sit here and b**** and say ‘Bob Arum rigged it and he did this’. He didn’t.
“It’s decisions like this and the 30-27 Guillard tonight that just, it does kill you. People think that it’s us. A lot of people aren’t educated on the fact that the Nevada state athletic commission actually picks these people and allows them to keep judging fights.”
Both fighters and fans have teased the idea of hiring ex-fighters as judges for events or at the very least requiring better training on how to score MMA bouts. After last night I expect those people to voice their opinions even more loudly than before.
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