Editorial: No, you don’t have to beat the champ to become the champ

Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

There’s no reason to use this tired and untrue phrase to defend MMA scoring One opinion — and it is only an opinion — which raised its ugly head in the aftermath of the Jon Jones vs. Domini…

UFC 247: Jones v Reyes

Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

There’s no reason to use this tired and untrue phrase to defend MMA scoring

One opinion — and it is only an opinion — which raised its ugly head in the aftermath of the Jon Jones vs. Dominick Reyes fight is a challenger has to beat the champion to become the champion. That phrase was used to defend scoring the fight, which served as the main event of Saturday’s UFC 247 fight card, in favor of Jones. This wrongheaded opinion has lingered in sports, especially in combat sports, for years. No one with any knowledge of MMA scoring should use this phrase seriously.

Take some time and think about what those words imply.

Okay, have you pondered the phrase and its meaning? Good, now allow me to play devil’s advocate.

Say two fighters step into the cage and throughout their five-round battle they both land the same number of strikes and do the same amount of damage. They both score the same number and type of takedowns as well as submission attempts and positional advantages. They are both equally aggressive throughout the contest. Finally, they both rack up the same amount and quality of cage control. When the final horn sounds everything between these two fighters is exactly the same for the entire 25-minute fight (Yes, this is probably an impossibility, but work with me here).

The score of the fight, using the most recent scoring criteria, should be a 50-50 draw. Ah, but one of those fighters is the defending champion and because of that fact, the judges have no choice but to give the fight 50-45 to the champ because after all, if you want to be the champ, you have to beat the champ.

You see how silly that sounds? But that’s exactly what people are claiming when they use that phrase. It implies the champion is starting with a 10-9 advantage before the beginning of each round. That’s simply not true, at least I hope it’s not true. The sole purpose of a judge is to score the fight. The name and status of a competitor can’t have a bearing on the scoring. If it does, that judge should never score another fight.

This fact shouldn’t need to be mentioned, but when someone like former UFC champion Rashad Evans brings up this played out theory, which he did on a post-UFC 247 edition of the Joe Rogan Experience, well, then it deserves to be mentioned — and debunked.