Opinion – The case against Cruz: Why TJ Dillashaw should still be champion

Bloody Elbow’s Connor Ruebusch reasons that the judges made a mistake by granting Dominick Cruz a victory over TJ Dillashaw at UFC Fight Night 81.

2016 is off to a perplexing start. Another fantastic title fight ends in yet another controversial decision, with Dominick Cruz taking the nod in a split decision over TJ Dillashaw. After a close and hard-fought battle, Cruz managed to convince two of the judges and walked home the victor, successfully reclaiming the belt that he never really lost.

Before I rip apart the scorecards of judges and fans alike, I should say that this is an incredible achievement on the part of Dominick Cruz, and easily one of the best comeback stories in the history of MMA. Nobody can take that away from him, and he certainly deserves our utmost respect as a martial artist and a human being.

But yeah. The decision sucked.

I got to discussing the scores with my Heavy Hands co-host Patrick Wyman, and he offered me some salient advice. “Let’s not talk about the decision on the show,” he said. In the aftermath of Robbie Lawler’s controversial victory over Carlos Condit at UFC 195, he cautioned me not to spoil another fantastic fight with arguments about the decision. “This isn’t the hill to die on.” Wise words, which I am about to ignore.

Okay, yes. The fight was close. Extremely close. So close, in fact, that when the fifth round ended I turned to my girlfriend and said, “This decision is going to piss a lot of people off,” not really expecting that I would number among them. It was just that kind of fight, high on competitiveness and consequently low on clarity. All the same, I was confident that TJ Dillashaw had retained his title. He had scored the cleaner, more telling blows, negated the excellent wrestling that has always been Cruz’s secret weapon, and made smart adjustments to stay one step ahead of Cruz in a fight that was full of nip and tuck exchanges.

Imagine my surprise, then, when the scores were announced and Cruz received the win. More than that, he received four rounds from judge Tony Weeks, who it seems was watching an entirely different fight from the rest of us. In fact, Weeks’ scorecard, which gave Cruz every one of the last four rounds, would have made more sense had he come forward and admitted that he had mixed up the two fighters.

And do you know what really got to me? After endless arguments about Lawler-Condit, the vast majority of them in favor of the loser, I had expected to join a sea of disgruntled fight fans, all of them disappointed at yet another decision gone wrong. But no one seemed to mind. 12 of 23 media members scored the fight in favor of Cruz (with one draw). Ten of 13 Bloody Elbow staffers did the same. A healthy 75 percent of Bloody Elbow readers agreed, with 20 percent of those feeling that Cruz had done enough to win four (or more) of the five rounds.

I just didn’t understand. I still don’t.

I could make broad complaints all day, but that’s not the point of this article. Instead, I hope to use this fight as an opportunity to discuss the intricacies of scoring, and why I believe that Cruz’s victory, while certainly well-earned on the part of the new champion, was a mistake on the part of judges.

THE CASE AGAINST DEFENSE

Something stood out to me in the aftermath of the fight. In nearly every discussion, Dominick Cruz’s defense was being lavished with praise. That in itself is not a bad thing. In fact, Cruz deserves endless admiration for his marvelous understanding of distance, and superb upper body movement. He is every bit the technical revolutionary his biggest fans believe him to be, and he has even made significant improvements since his first championship run (something I hope to explore in my slightly delayed but seriously epic technique breakdown of the fight).

Unfortunately, mentions of Cruz’s defense kept creeping into discussions of the scores. “I’ve never seen a championship fighter miss as much as Dillashaw did.” “Dillashaw was swinging at air all night.” “Cruz made him look foolish.” These statements are not bad in and of themselves, but they have no place in a conversation about the scoring of a bout.

You see, in 2012 the Association of Boxing Commission’s MMA Judging Committee made a number of revisions to the Unified Rules of MMA. Paramount among them was the removal of defense as a scoring criterion. Per the committee’s final draft:

1. The committee believes that offensive actions should be the only criteria used to score MMA matches. Offensive fighters are fighters which carry the fight and push the action, and make the fight happen.

2. Defense is its own reward. A fighter who chooses to avoid using defensive actions will invariably suffer the consequences. For example if a fighter decides that they do not want to block or avoid a strike, protect themselves from a submission, or avoid a throw or takedown then they will suffer the results of those offensive actions being used against them. The only role defensive action plays is to keep a fighter in the fight longer so that they can attempt to score using offensive actions.

3. Having two fighters avoid offensive actions and rely solely on defense goes against the basic primary consideration of any combative sport: To score using offense.

I love this change. I would be ecstatic if the criteria for boxing underwent a similar transformation. In fighting, defense is a means to an end. A well-executed slip or pivot puts the defending fighter in a position to counter. It is obviously better to block or parry a Strike than to take it clean on the chin. There is no need to offer points for effective defense when the reward is so obvious and immediate. Defense is great, but it doesn’t win a fight by itself.

This also means that a fighter is not to be penalized for missing. Scoring in MMA is positive. Barring a point deduction from the referee, fighters are not to be punished for ineffective tactics, only rewarded for effective ones. Mesmerized by Cruz’s defensive prowess, many fans have focused overmuch on the number of Strikes that Dillashaw failed to land, as if this has any bearing on the way a fight is scored.

According to FightMetric, Dillashaw landed 109 Strikes to Cruz’s 112, but threw over a hundred more. As such, his connect percentage is considerably lower, 26 percent to Cruz’s 37. To some this suggests that Cruz was having his way with Dillashaw, landing when he wanted to land and keeping Dillashaw from doing the same. What matters, however, are those initial numbers. With nearly the same number of landed Strikes throughout the fight (per round, as well), the advantage goes to the fighter who landed the cleaner, more meaningful Strikes.

Point Dillashaw.

THE CASE AGAINST CONTROL

“Control” is another word being frequently bandied about in this post-Dillashaw-Cruz world.

In their revisions, the ABC committee decided to move Control, placing it last in the hierarchy of criteria after Aggression, Grappling, and Striking. Demotion aside, however, generalship is still to be considered in the scoring of a fight. The ABC defines “Control” thusly: “‘Cage/Ring Control’ is dictating the pace, place and position of the fight.”

With such a nebulous definition, it’s no wonder that “Control” is the favorite term of impassioned fans in the aftermath of a close fight. There is no other criterion so blatantly open to personal bias and manipulation.

Think about it: the term essentially boils down to “the guy who does what he wants to do during the fight is in Control.” So if one fighter is coming forward and throwing combinations, while the other steps away and counters, who is Controlling the fight? Surely Fighter A wants to be coming forward. Is he not dictating the place and position of the fight by Controlling the center of the cage and forcing his opponent to retreat? Then again, what if Fighter B wants to fight off of the back foot? Is he actually setting traps, drawing his opponent in and exerting his own subtle influence on the whereabouts of the contest? Maybe Fighter B is Controlling the pace by making his opponent throw and miss more. You might call that “dictating the pace.” Then again, Fighter A could be perfectly happy throwing twice as many punches, knowing that his greater volume increases his chances of connecting. So maybe he’s dictating the pace . . .

See the problem? Control is very much a part of the official criteria, but it is almost entirely subjective. The assignation of “ring general” to one fighter or the other more or less depends on which guy you like more, or whichever one catches your eye first. If Control is a lynchpin of your pro-Cruz argument, honestly consider the degree to which bias may have affected your score.

Or don’t, because it doesn’t matter anyway. We may be compelled to consider Control in our scorecards, but only when the two major criteria, effective Striking and Grappling, are equal. Going back to those ABC revisions: “Cage/Ring Control are secondary criteria to be used when effective striking and effective grappling are even.”

In other words, Control should very rarely be the factor that decides a round. Unless you believe that the same number and/or quality of Strikes and Grappling techniques were landed by both fighters–a rare occurrence indeed–then you shouldn’t even be thinking of cage Control. And even when Control does become a factor, its simpler cousin Agression takes precedence. According to the ABC, “Effective aggression will be weighed more heavily than cage/ring Control.”

Dillashaw definitely had the edge in Aggression. He spent the majority of the bout coming forward, and despite his many misses landed the same number of Strikes as his opponent, many of them cleaner and more impactful. This means Dillashaw was utilizing effective Aggression. The point of a Strike combination is to increase one’s chances of connecting with the second, third, and fourth shots, progressively. All three punches need not land for a 1-2-3 to be effective; so long as the hook connects, the combination has done its work. In the same way, overall Aggression can be considered effective so long as Strikes are being landed with relative consistency.

In virtually any round that saw Dillashaw and Cruz managing equal offense, therefore, Dillashaw would rightfully be given the round based on Aggression before Cruz’s Control, tainted as it is by personal bias, ever entered into the conversation.

THE CASE AGAINST GRAPPLING

I am a Striking fan. In my article summaries, I even go so far as to call myself a Striking “specialist.” The fist to the face, that is my milieu, and I don’t make any efforts to disguise that fact. I have been accused of a Striking bias as a result, particularly during discussions of this fight. “What about Cruz’s takedowns?” folks ask me. “You think Dillashaw won the round with his kickboxing, but Cruz landed more takedowns.”

And that is true. Out of 11 attempts, Cruz completed four takedowns, while Dillashaw managed only one. If the striking were wholly even, it would make sense that Cruz’s takedowns should decide the close rounds. This is MMA, after all, and grappling counts too.

Except it’s not that simple. The Unified Rules employ a “sliding scale” of importance when it comes to striking and grappling. According to the ABC MMA Judging committee: “If a round is affected more by striking, then striking will be weighed more heavily. If a round is affected more by grappling than [sic] grappling will be weighed more heavily.” In other words, three minutes of striking exchanges should outweigh a broken minute of grappling on the scorecards.

If you really thought the striking exchanges were equal then a takedown or two might still be enough to tip you in favor of Cruz, but keep in mind that the Rules specify that only effective Grappling should score. The MMA Judging Committee does indeed name takedowns as an example of a legal, scoring technique, but in their “examples of factors to consider” they list “take downs from standing position to mount position, passing the guard to a dominant position, and bottom position fighters using an active, threatening guard to create submission attempts.” In all of these examples the intended meaning is clear: grappling is only effective if it leads to progression or other meaningful offense.

Well-timed as they were, Cruz never managed more than a second or two of meaningful control following his takedown attempts. The moment his feet were taken out from under him, Dillashaw bucked, rolled, hip escaped, whizzered, and worked his way quickly back to his feet, or to top position. There was no point at which Cruz was able to hold Dillashaw down and pass his guard, secure back control, threaten with a submission, or even land a single strike–FIghtMetric contends that Dillashaw was the only fighter to connect with a strike on the ground.

How effective is a takedown which leads only to an otherwise neutral scramble? At best it is a low-scoring grappling technique, the impact of which is lessened even further by the preponderance of Striking exchanges in the fight. We could bring Control back into the discussion, but that seems to be a wash as well. If Cruz was dictating the pace, place, and position of the fight by taking Dillashaw to the ground, then surely Dillashaw did the same by returning to his feet.

“Grappling has a definitive skill set and athleticism and offensive capabilities which when used correctly can effectively end a fight.” Vague and open to interpretation as it is, the ABC’s language does not imply that we are to score all Grappling techniques equally, or score MMA as if it were a wrestling match. In fact, if we were to do that, then Dominick Cruz would be penalized for his frequent retreating. Just as we can acknowledge that defensive, long-range fighting has its place in MMA, we should be able to acknowledge that all takedowns are not created equal.

An MMA fighter’s goal should always be to finish the fight; the scoring ought to reflect that.

THE CASE AGAINST CRUZ

Striking, Grappling, Aggression, and Control. These are the factors we are to consider when judging a fight. Neither defense nor misses are to be considered. Control is only a factor when the round is otherwise equal, and only then when neither fighter has an advantage in Aggression. Striking and Grappling are both rewarded, but the more prominent of the two takes precedence. That is how the Rules work.

Now think back to the fight. Rewatch it if you like. Can you still make a sound argument for Cruz winning three or more rounds without mentioning his defense, or the number of times that Dillashaw missed his mark? Can you still give Cruz three or more rounds with Octagon Control effectively off the table? How about the Grappling? Can you give Cruz the win if his occasional takedowns are outweighed by the Striking that otherwise defined the fight?

If so, then I cannot possibly tell you that you’re wrong. Scoring is subjective, after all, and every judge has his or her own personal preferences. All we can ask is that those preferences fall within the confines of the Unified Rules. If you truly believe that Dominick Cruz had the better of the Striking exchanges in three or more rounds, then I can’t tell you you’re wrong. If you think that those Striking exchanges were so indecipherably equal that Cruz’s takedowns gave him the edge, then more power to you. And if you consider a takedown which leads to nothing but a scramble an example of effective Grappling, then who am I to question your opinion?

All I  can ask is that you carefully examine your scorecards for this fight, and ask yourself if you stuck closely to the Unified Rules in your judgment. Unless he really did confuse the two fighters, Tony Weeks doesn’t seem to have done so.

Dominick Cruz was masterful. His technique was better than ever, and he fought his heart out after years of almost complete inactivity. No one can take away the majesty of Dominick Cruz’s performance.

All the same, Dominick Cruz should not have taken away TJ Dillashaw’s belt.

For an analysis of the techniques in this fight, check out the latest episode of Heavy Hands, the only podcast dedicated to the finer points of face-punching.