Mma Rounds

The ten-point must system is in effect for all UFC fights; three judges score each round and the winner of each receives ten points while the loser receives nine points or fewer (although 10–10 rounds are given in the rare event that a judge feels the rounds was too close to warrant giving one fighter 10 and the other 9.) Scores of 10–8 are typically awarded for dominant rounds and anything more dominant is scored less. 2 days ago  Lightweight: Islam Makhachev (19-1, 8-1 UFC) defeats Drew Dober (23-10 1 NC, 9-6 1 NC UFC) by third-round submission Islam Makhachev, right, resembled his. Brbetting @brbetting. UFC 259 IS ALMOST HERE. 3 TITLE FIGHTS 🏆 Adesanya -235 vs. Blachowicz +185 Nunes -1000 vs. Anderson +650 Yan -115 vs. Sterling -106 (Odds via @DKSportsbook) https://t.co.

• Mma Round Girl

LAS VEGAS – Israel Adesanya doesn’t think his loss to Jan Blachowicz was as lopsided as the scorecards made it out to be.

Middleweight champion Adesanya (20-1 MMA, 9-1 UFC) failed to capture a second belt when he was defeated by light heavyweight champ Blachowicz in the UFC 259 main event this past Saturday. All three judges gave Blachowicz four rounds, and two gave him a 10-8 score in Round 5.

Although Adesanya agrees Blachowicz (28-8 MMA, 11-5 UFC) did enough to beat him, he’s not sure about the 10-8s in Round 5. He was taken down and controlled on the canvas, but didn’t seem to absorb any serious damage.

“It wasn’t that big of a difference. I don’t know about those 10-8 rounds, and I don’t know about some of those scorecards from the judges,” Adesanya told reporters, including MMA Junkie, at the post-fight news conference. “But I lost the fight to the better fighter tonight, the craftier fighter tonight. But it wasn’t an ass whooping or anything.

“When he had me on the ground, if he had postured up and then wailed on me and thrown some crazy elbows and some crazy punches and connected crazy, yeah – I can say, ‘Yeah, give it a 10-8. Give it a 10-7, even. Use the whole 10-point must system.’ But it wasn’t under that. He just held on and snuck some shots in to try and keep it busy enough that the referee doesn’t stand it up, and that’s a veteran move because he’s a veteran in this game.”

Because Adesanya didn’t think the scorecards accurately reflected his performance, he likes the idea of open scoring that he thinks would help fighters understand where they stand in the fight.

“I wasn’t scoring it, so I didn’t really know what it was. But I’m telling you, some of those judges, they at least need to train,” Adesanya said. “There needs to be some kind of criteria before you start judging MMA and not just get some guys from boxing, like, ‘Oh, have a look at this MMA fight and judge.’ At least you need to get down with the business.

“(Open scoring) might be a good thing. Maybe even scores during the rounds so you know if you’re behind or not. That’s smart. Let’s do that then. I like the fact that we have instant replays now. I don’t know why that took so long. I think that’s a really smart idea. Get it done so that way if my corner wants to tell me, ‘Yo, we need this round,’ because I saw him getting tired. Trust me – I was fresh. He was getting tired and the size played a factor in the fifth round.”

LAS VEGAS -- It's pretty amazing that the entire Tyron Woodley-Stephen Thompson rivalry was essentially decided in the final moments of their second fight.

All those hours of preparation, promoting both fights -- flights, hotels, side-by-side interviews -- two weight cuts, 50 minutes of competition inside the Octagon: It all came down to a single Woodley flurry at UFC 209.

As it should have.

Look, Saturday's UFC welterweight title fight rematch was an absolute dud in terms of entertainment value. Thus, it's tempting to simply bury it in the ground and forget about it.

Who won the first round? How about the second? Oh, oh, I know! Who cares, right? The fight stunk. Let's move on.

Except that fight brought up an extremely rare topic in mixed martial arts. And I think we need to have a conversation about this now so that the next time it comes up, we can be in agreement ahead of time.

It basically comes down to this: Does a 10-10 round exist in MMA?

Technically, it does -- for a very distinct purpose. If a fight is waved off due to something like an accidental head butt, and judges need to score a round that only lasted 10 seconds, they need a 10-10 option, yes? Of course.

OK, but how about a full, five-minute round in which neither fighter establishes an advantage of any kind over the other -- like the first round of the Woodley-Thompson fight? Do we get to use the 10-10 score then?

The reason this is so worth discussing now is that if that opening round of Saturday's title fight is not a 10-10, then there is no such thing as a 10-10 score. And for the record, none of the three judges scored that round 10-10.

Nothing happened in the first five minutes of that fight. According to Fightmetric, each welterweight landed five total strikes, which might be generous. Nothing significant landed, and there was no grappling whatsoever.

And yet, all three veteran judges scored the first round 10-9 for Thompson. Why did they do it? The most reasonable explanation, one that many observers mentioned aloud, is that Thompson established 'Octagon control.'

Did he? The main reasoning behind this seems to be that Thompson took the center of the cage, and Woodley spent most of the round with his back near the fence. That much is true, but does it represent 'control' for Thompson?

If anyone believes that's where Thompson wanted the fight to take place -- and/or where Woodley did not -- what are you basing that on? Past fights? Perceived skill sets? Nothing else really supports it. In fact, statistically, Woodley was slightly more efficient that round, landing 41 percent of strikes compared to Thompson's 31 percent.

After the championship bout was over, Woodley addressed fighting with his back to the fence. And based on his comments, it does not sound as if he views it as a position of disadvantage.

'Sometimes, when you're fighting a point fighter, you expect him to run around and stick and move,' Woodley said. 'I might need that entire 30-foot Octagon to go from my back against the cage all the way across with a blitz to get the opening I need.'

Again, this isn't the most exhilarating topic, so let's wrap things up with this: Athletic commissions basically tell us that 10-10 rounds exist, but they shouldn't be used -- that over the course of a five-minute round, a top-notch judge should be able to decipher which athlete held even the slightest advantage.

I am willing to argue that a top-notch judge should have the courage and ability to say, 'Hey, that was an anomaly 10-10. And I'm not going to put one of these elite welterweights at a massive disadvantage based solely on where they happened to be standing during a round in which nothing happened.'

Because the difference between 10-10 and 10-9 in a razor-thin, chess match, five-round fight is enormous.

Mma Round Girl

Do 10-10 rounds exist? Barely. Five years may go by before we see another one. But if what we saw on Saturday doesn't qualify as one, what in the world does?