Bizarre Judging and Passionate Criticisms on Display at UFC 106

The recent spat of bad judging and controversial decisions has created a firestorm of criticism and debate within the MMA community.

Take for instance this quote from Jordan Breen,

"Also, Glenn Trowbridge's Ortiz scorecard reaffirms why he's the most dangerous man in MMA since the evaporation of Dalby Shirley."

Trowbridge scored the fight 29-28 for Tito Ortiz.

Mike Fagan echoes those sentiments saying,

"Someone needs to take away Glenn Trowbridge's judging license.  A card of 29-28 Ortiz is atrocious.  Absolutely atrocious.  I personally had the fight 30-26 Griffin, though I find 30-27 and 29-28 Griffin acceptable as well."

For the opposite view point Josh Gross had TIto winning rounds one and two.

"I had Tito winning the first and second. Griffin obviously took the third."

Outside the obvious debate over who won the fight there is another debate on how the judges actually scored each round.

MMA Junkie uploaded the actual scored card from the Ortiz-Griffin fight and the results are bizarre.

The general consensus within the MMA community is that round one was close but Griffin took it. Round two was also close but Ortiz's takedowns and damage in the guard should have won him the round. Round three is decisive for Griffin but then there is the issue of whether or not the final round should have been scored 10-8 for Griffin.

Yet the judges saw a completely different fight. Two judges scored round one for Ortiz while only one scored round two for Ortiz. Those results are perplexing to say the least.

Unfortunately, the decision and judging that was on display at UFC 106 was not an anomaly, but rather, part of a growing trend of bad judging (UFC 105 and 105 anyone?).

So what the hell is going on here and how do we fix it?

Marc Ratner talked to Heavy.com to explain the process.

Then there is Dana White's own criticism of the situation,

Yeah, uh, you know, the judging is ... listen, you know, the fight could have gone either way, 30-27? I mean that's crazy, you know Tito and I were just talking about that, the 30-27 score is outrageous, it's insane. I can understand Forrest getting a 10-8 in that last round, um, he dominated the round and Tito hardly threw any punches in that last round but for anybody to call that fight 30-27 man, you're out of your mind."

"Yeah it did, it was a close first round, first round’s tough to score, as soon as that fight got over, all of us were sitting down, we were like that was a tough round to score, Tito clearly won the second round, um, like I said at the end of the day I’m not a judge and it’s hard when you’re sitting there watching it I’ll give you a name example, I talked about at the Q & A the other day when Lorenzo and I flew to England we re-scored the Machida/Shogun fight and you know we both scored it either 4 to 1 or worst case scenario 3 to 2 for Shogun so, you know I’m seeing I got to watch the fight again but when you’re sitting there it’s tough and I’m not a judge, so I don’t really sit there and look for what the judges are looking for."

Q: "So, do you bring in new judges?"

Dana White: "I don’t do that."

White is also trying to drum up grass roots support for reform,

"You should see the emails I get. ‘You scumbag. You’re just like Don King.’ I get literally hundreds of them. It’s crazy, but that’s what people think. People think we pick (fighters) to win or lose and tell the commissions to do it. It couldn’t be further from the truth. I don’t know what to say. If everyone wants to call the (Nevada State) Athletic Commission and talk to (executive director) Keith Kizer – he’s the guy you have to ask questions to, not me. … The reality is you guys have to call Keith Kizer. Call Keith Kizer and asked him what we can to do to fix this judging and scoring. These athletic commissions need to start looking at this and figuring out what they’re going to do. It’s wrong."