Tag: shitty judging

Body Shots Don’t Win Fights: Fabio Maldonado Outstrikes Igor Pokrajac 166-64, Still Loses


(Brazilian boy can’t get no love? / Props: enlapelea.com)

Fabio Maldonado should have learned his lesson in his fight against Kyle Kingsbury last June — if the judges refuse to count body punches as “effective damage,” you might as well just start head-hunting and grunting and hope for the best. Once again, the Brazilian light-heavyweight put on a body-shot clinic in his bout against Igor Pokrajac at last night’s UFC event, and once again he wound up with a unanimous decision loss, with one judge inexplicably handing all three rounds to the Croatian. Many observers called this one a robbery, and you can understand why if you look a little closer at the striking totals. According to FightMetric…

– Round 1: Maldonado out-landed Pokrajac 36-6 in significant strikes, 47-16 overall.

– Round 2: Maldonado out-landed Pokrajac 26-13 in significant strikes, 60-18 overall.

– Round 3: Maldonado out-landed Pokrajac 36-17 in significant strikes, 59-30 overall.

– Overall: Maldonado’s success-rate for significant strikes was 72% (98 of 137), compared to 45% for Pokrajac (36 of 80). The final overall striking total was 166-64 in Maldonado’s favor.


(Brazilian boy can’t get no love? / Props: enlapelea.com)

Fabio Maldonado should have learned his lesson in his fight against Kyle Kingsbury last June — if the judges refuse to count body punches as “effective damage,” you might as well just start head-hunting and grunting and hope for the best. Once again, the Brazilian light-heavyweight put on a body-shot clinic in his bout against Igor Pokrajac at last night’s UFC event, and once again he wound up with a unanimous decision loss, with one judge inexplicably handing all three rounds to the Croatian. Many observers called this one a robbery, and you can understand why if you look a little closer at the striking totals. According to FightMetric…

– Round 1: Maldonado out-landed Pokrajac 36-6 in significant strikes, 47-16 overall.

– Round 2: Maldonado out-landed Pokrajac 26-13 in significant strikes, 60-18 overall.

– Round 3: Maldonado out-landed Pokrajac 36-17 in significant strikes, 59-30 overall.

– Overall: Maldonado’s success-rate for significant strikes was 72% (98 of 137), compared to 45% for Pokrajac (36 of 80). The final overall striking total was 166-64 in Maldonado’s favor.

Of course, some of Pokrajac’s shots ranked among the most effective of the match, and he did score a takedown in round 1, but was Pokrajac’s strike-quality really enough to overcome Maldonado’s overwhelming advantage in quantity? And are body-shots the new leg-kicks, in terms of MMA judges not giving them enough credit?

Sketchy decision aside, Maldonado vs. Pokrajac was a highly entertaining scrap that was a clear front-runner for UFC on FUEL 3‘s Fight of the Night award — until Zombie vs. Poirier came along and snatched the bonuses away at the buzzer. Tough break(s), Fabio…

Some Dude Hit a $50,000 12-Fight UFC 131 Parlay…And in Other News, Vancouver MMA Judge Seen Driving New $50,000 Lexus Off the Lot Today

Okay, we made that last part up, but doesn’t it seem kind of odd that someone randomly picked all of the winners in a 12-fight parlay from a card that was steeped in controversial judges’ scoring?

We don’t even get half of our picks right, and we’re paid to analyze the sport and its fighters.

According to a story from MMAFighting.com an unnamed individual won $51,547 from a $200 bet placed through Bodog.eu.

“Hitting parlays in MMA happens often but to hit every fight right on a 12-fight card in one night is unheard of, especially that the parlay included a mix of favorites and a few medium underdogs, including two controversial decisions that went in the bettor’s favor.” Bodog Sports Book Director Richard Gardner told MMAFighting.

Unheard of unless you’re a judge who has the power to do what it takes to ensure the losers are winners and the winners are losers. We’re just spitballing here, but maybe a crooked official utilized the newly approved video monitors to pipe in other footage from a previous fight for the judges to score. Who are we kidding? They probably just sucked at judging like 3/4 of the posters on Sherdog.

Okay, we made that last part up, but doesn’t it seem kind of odd that someone randomly picked all of the winners in a 12-fight parlay from a card that was steeped in controversial judges’ scoring?

We don’t even get half of our picks right, and we’re paid to analyze the sport and its fighters.

According to a story from MMAFighting.com an unnamed individual won $51,547 from a $200 bet placed through Bodog.eu.

“Hitting parlays in MMA happens often but to hit every fight right on a 12-fight card in one night is unheard of, especially that the parlay included a mix of favorites and a few medium underdogs, including two controversial decisions that went in the bettor’s favor.” Bodog Sports Book Director Richard Gardner told MMAFighting.

Unheard of unless you’re a judge who has the power to do what it takes to ensure the losers are winners and the winners are losers. We’re just spitballing here, but maybe a crooked official utilized the newly approved video monitors to pipe in other footage from a previous fight for the judges to score. Who are we kidding? They probably just sucked at judging like 3/4 of the posters on Sherdog.

What’s interesting is that four of the five judges on hand Saturday night were ex or current fighters. Bill Mahood (20-7-1), Jason Darrah (0-2) and Dave Hagen (0-3) and Chris Franco (2-3) each made some questionable scoring calls. Even longtime judge and the creator of the 1/2 point scoring system Nelson “Doc” Hamilton seemed divided in some of his scores, which differed completely than some of his peers.

So what can we do to fix the problem?

How about having judges apprentice or shadow established officials for a specified number of fights after the completion of a reputable judging course? That is one of the suggestions on the table here in Ontario and I think it’s a good one considering that Saturday night proved that putting inexperienced local judges in to score a fight for the sake of keeping the work local may come at the detriment of the fighters.

Something needs to be done about the issue. Whatever it is, hopefully it happens sooner than later.

Check out the rest of the scorecards below.